THE RED-LETTER DAY FOR STOP-MOTION ANIMATED FILMS IN ŁÓDŹ

Tomorrow, the third edition of the international festival Se-Ma-For Film Festival starts in Łódź. In the programme, there are a lot of attractions for fans of puppet and stop motion animation.

The Łódź festival Se-Ma-For is one of the three festivals worldwide and the only one in Europe,  specially dedicated to films which are made using stop motion technique. The idea was born in 2010, a hundred years after the first attempts at animation by Władysław Starewicz - the pioneer of puppet animation.

This year, as many as three Polish films were qualified for the main, international competition: "Paper box" by Zbigniew Czapla, awarded during this year's Animator, "Friction" by Michał Mróz and "Turuntaj, the end and the beginning" by Natalia Brożyńska - the author of the widely popular film "Shivering trunks". 38 films from around the world will be pitted against each other in the competition. In the Polish competition, 22 brand new films, made using various animation techniques, will be shown. The winners will receive the "Little Peter" statuettes, named after the protagonist of the Oscar-winning "Peter and the wolf" by Susie Templeton. 

The special "Big Peter" award will be given to the Estonian studio Nukufilm. The 45-year-old studio is the producer of the latest film by Ulo Pikkov, "Body memory" or the popular children's series "Miriam," among others. In the main competition at Se-Ma-For festival, one will see as many as 5 films produced by Nukufilm.

Another two "Big Peters" will go to the masters of Polish animation: Zbigniew Rybczyński and Daniel Szczechura. Both film makers will receive the awards in person.

This year, the rich programme of accompanying screenings will be dominated by our neighbours' cinematography. Within the frames of the "Animation next door" series, one could see in Łódź the best films from the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Belarus, Lithuania, Russia, Romania, Croatia, Slovenia, Estonia and Poland, produced in last five years. The series will be accompanied by a sequence of meetings and discussion forum, with the participation of international guests.

3. Se-Ma-For festival takes place from 10 to 13 October 2012.

The detailed programme is available on the festival's official website