Animafest Zagreb 2025 Winners: “Dull Spots of Greenish Colours’, ‘Memoir of a Snail’

The 35th World Festival of Animated Film—Animafest Zagreb (2-7 June 2025)—proved to be another socially and politically minded event, reflected in its award-winning films.

The jury of the Grand Competition Short Film, comprising Osman Cerfon, Špela Čadež, Erwin Gomez, Sarina Nihei and Ivana Volda, awarded the Grand Prix to the German film Dull Spots of Greenish Colours, directed by Sasha Svirsky, for its “skillful blend of techniques” and “philosophical and organic” reflection on media’s impact on our societal, personal and physical experience of the world. Last month, this Locarno title won the ASIFA Austria award at Vienna Shorts. ‘On Weary Wings Go By’ by Anu-Laura Tuttelberg, her second in the porcelain puppet film series, won the festival’s Creativity and Innovative Artistic Achievement Award.

In the feature film category, Adam Elliot’s personal snail-fan trappings in ‘Memoirs of a Snail’ gave the Oscar-nominated clay film the Grand Prix—the Brothers Quay won a Special Mention with their ‘Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass’.

The stop-motion animation short ‘Psychonauts’ by Niko Radas, in which  mental disorders are depicted as spatial ‘extensions’ of their carriers, anthropomorphised objects or symbolic items was the winner in the festival’s Croatian competition.

The technique-diverse and impressive ‘Mother’s Child’ by Naomin Noir (Utrecht School of the Arts), a story of a mother with her adult disabled son won the Student Film Compettion; Jan Saska’s ‘Hurikán’ was the audience favorite (for a short film); in the feature film category, the ‘Living Large’ by Kristina Dufkova, a 3-country co-production won the corresponding audience award.

The combined Student and Croatian Film Competition Jury, consisting of Michał Bobrowski, Waltraud Grausgruber and Jin Woo, awarded the Dušan Vukotić Award for Best Student Film to Naomi Noir’s Mother’s Child (Netherlands), while Psychonauts by Niko Radas received Best Croatian Film and Oscar candidacy.

The full list for the winnter!

https://animafest.hr/en/2025/news/read/winners_of_world_festival_of_animated_film_animafest_zagreb_2025

Congratulation!