SET VI - SZÓSTY ZMYSŁ

Full of exuberance and frivolousness, six friends drive to the Polish Baltic coast and back in a small, dented car. During their trip, their car and their country fall apart. Nevertheless, life goes on. Their journey is interfused with memories and snapshots from the past. 

Jadwiga Kowalska – Born in 1982 in Bern, Switzerland. Joint Swiss and Polish citizenship. Jadwiga Kowalska studied animation and illustration at the HSLU (Hochschule Luzern, Kunst & Design) and the APS (Akademia Sztuk Pięknych) in Kraków. She has received numerous awards for her films and picture book, notably at the Oberhausen Short Film Festival and the Swiss Film Prize «Quartz 2009» for the best Animation Film for TÔT OU TARD (2008) and at the Locarno Film Festival for THE BRIDGE OVER THE RIVER (2016). 

On the planet Gasto, night is eternal. Todos los futuros chronicles the arrival and evolution of humanity on this fictional planet. 

Bárbara Cerro is an Argentine filmmaker and animation director based in Buenos Aires. She graduated from UBA with a degree in Image and Sound Design, and studied Documentary Filmmaking. Her award-winning works have been featured in international festivals, including Berlinale, Annecy, and the Ottawa International Animation Festival. She is frequently invited as a jury member or speaker at various events like GLAS Animation and Ventana Sur. Barbara is also the founder and director of the annual BITBANG Animation, Video Games, and Digital Art Festival which takes place in Buenos Aires, since 2015. 

In a Latin American country, a child’s notebook recounts a series of horrifying events that happened at the Circus of the Big Moustache Clowns. Presented as a children's horror story, it narrates the way in which tricks and torture were performed at the circus. A tent filled with cynical and perverse acts where the Big Moustache Clowns amused themselves by making people disappear, accompanied by animal trainers and their creatures ready to terrorize young victims, or by performing death-defying stunts. In raw and simple language, the film recalls some of the events that occurred during Argentina's last military dictatorship, offering an intimate reflection on the country´s recent history. 

Ana Comes is an independent filmmaker, animator, and workshop leader. She studied Film at the National University of Córdoba and honed her craft at the Cineclub La Quimera. Her works have been shown at national and international festivals, winning several awards and recognitions. She is the director of the studio Bicha Animación and is currently developing her first non-fiction feature film, Notas para prácticas incendiarias.  

Tomas Alzogaray Vanella - Multidisciplinary artist and cultural manager (Argentina-Mexico). He studied Arts and Theatre at the National University of Córdoba. His work has been featured in both solo and group exhibitions at national and international festivals. He has worked as an art director in film, as a producer, set designer, actor, and theatre director. He has led artistic and educational projects related to art, politics, and mental health. He joyfully draws, produces, and coordinates the La Carpintería Cultural Center in Córdoba, Argentina.  

Paz Bloj - A graduate in Film and TV from UNC, Paz Bloj works as Director of Art, Set Designer, and Environmental Designer in film, advertising, and animated fiction series. As a director and animator, she is known for her work using stop-motion techniques with particles. Among her animated projects are El Zeide (2010, INCAA), Desarma y Sangra (2015), Panic Point (2017), the series Leyendas a Contraluz (2012), Fauna (co-produced with Peru), and La Hora de las Piedras (2020, INCAA). She is currently directing the Bicha Animación studio. 

Three men, on their way in a descending balloon over icy sea, need to get rid of some weight. After a vote, the two men throw the third man out of the basket, intent on saving their lives. 

Øyvind Tangseth has his education in animation from Volda University College and has had a long career in the Norwegian Animation Business. He has been working at several different norwegian studios; Filmkameratene, Storm Studio, Qvisten, Bug, Creacon and NRK amongst others. He has had many different roles; he has worked with 3D animation, stop motion, lay-out, design and as animation supervisor in tv-series for children. Since 2013 he has mainly been working as a 2D animator, animation designer and director in Råsalt Studio, a studio co-funded with Trine Vallevik Håbjørg. The last film he directed "The captain, the pilot and the singer" (2014) was shown at multiple festivals around the world.  

On a foggy morning, a simple conversation between two anglers turns into a collective panic. The film explores the psychology of the mob in ambiguous situations. Through individual perspective of the group, finally show the group of irrational judgment theme. The group will distort the events they see, and there will be a phenomenon of mutual infection, so that the distortion of the event presents a consistency, and everyone in the group will show the same state. Even if the group sees the facts, it is like not seeing them, completely ignoring them, but integrating the distorted illusion with the real events. The distortion of an event by a group, which begins with the first distortion of an event by an individual, is also the beginning of the suggestion of contagion. Through the analysis of the mass effect, I discussed that in the fuzzy and uncertain situation, through the psychological distortion of the things seen by individuals, hallucinations would be generated and gradually infected to others, and finally show the irrational animation of the group. In the film, fog runs through the whole, fog is not only the fog in the real scene, but also the fog in the heart of the crowd. Through the fog, the real things are often hidden, people can not see the truth. There is also a fog in the heart of the crowd, usually seemingly rational, intelligent, dialectical, once it spreads, these things are hidden, everyone tends to be consistent. 

Liu Renming – I am 23 years old. Chinese animation director. I have been selected for MONSTRA-Lisbon Animation Festival, Feinaki 2024 BeijingAnimation Week, Xiamen International Animation Festival, DIGITAL ART CHINA, 14thBeijingInternationalFilm Festival, Chinese Film Festival Hamburg, AuroraInternational Horror Film Festival 2025, CortoNero_noir short film competition, Golden Baklava Film Academy International StudentFilm Festival, That'sANIMATO! International Animation Film Student Awards, Living Skies StudentFilm Festival. 

In a dystopian world where touch is forbidden, Matta and Matto offer refuge to the lonely at Hotel Vaip. In the deceptive labyrinth of mind bending rooms at their transient hotel, deepest desires are fulfilled and surpassed, but this comes at a price. 

Bianca Caderas (1990) from Basel and Kerstin Zemp (1993) from Lucerne, successfully completed their Bachelor in Animation 2D at the Lucerne School of Art & Design in 2017 with their short film „Living Like Heta“ (co-directed with Isabella Luu). Their graduation film was shown at numerous animation festivals around the world, including SHORTSHORTS (Tokyo), Animafest (Zagreb) and Warsaw Film Festival. „Living Like Heta‘‘ received the High Swiss Risk Award at Fantoche 2017 and was awarded the Innerschweizer Filmpreis in 2019. Both moved abroad for several years after graduating: Bianca to Hamburg for her film studies and Kerstin worked in Ireland as a freelance illustrator and animator. In 2020, Bianca comple- ted her writer-director’s film „Jeroboam”, which was made in collaboration with Kerstin. „Matta and Matto” 2023 is their second short film, which they directed together. 

Individuals live in tiny, isolated rooms away from the hazards of the outside world. They make a living through live video streaming, connecting with others in the virtual realm. Yet, on one fateful day, a chubby boy stumbles upon an unexpected secret. 

Chan Tan Lui is an animator and illustrator living in the Czech Republic. Born and raised in Hong Kong, she has 5 years of experience in the design industry. Her curiosity about European art and culture led her to study animation at Ladislav Sutnar Faculty of Design and Art in Pilsen since 2019. She is passionate about using animation as a means to convey her perspective on society to the public and as a medium to create. 

A dark fairy tale about a duck village that, in order to get tourists, fakes a wild monster attack to increase fame and sympathy. But, of course, everything goes wrong. 

Bill Plympton is considered the King of Indie Animation, and is the first person to hand draw an entire animated feature film, The Tune. Bill moved to New York City from Portland, Oregon in 1968 and began his career creating cartoons for publications such as The New York Times, The New Yorker, National Lampoon, Playboy and Screw.  

In 1987, he was nominated for an Oscar® for his animated short Your Face. In 2005, Bill received another Oscar® nomination, this time for his short Guard Dog. Push Comes to Shove won the prestigious Cannes 1991 Prix du Jury; and in 2001, another short film, Eat, won the Grand Prize for Short Films in Cannes Critics' Week.  

After producing many shorts that appeared on MTV and Spike and Mike's, he turned his talent to feature films. Since 1991, he's made eleven feature films. Eight of them, The Tune, Mondo Plympton, I Married A Strange Person, Mutant Aliens, Hair High, Idiots and Angels, Cheatin', Revengeance, and Slide are all animated features.  

Bill Plympton has also collaborated with Madonna, Kanye West and Weird Al Yankovic in a number of music videos and book projects and he's created numerous commissioned ads for Geico, Trivial Pursuit, Ford, Mercedes, Nike and Taco Bell. In 2006, he received the Winsor McCay Lifetime Achievement Award from The Annie Awards. He also animated eight opening "couch gags" for FOX-TV's "The Simpsons" and six "Trump Bites" shorts, which was #1 on the New York Times online, using real audio from Donald Trump. It won a 2019 Webby Award. He also won the National Cartoonist Society Lifetime Achievement Award.