Announcement Nyomtatás

An Oscar-winner director will be the jury president

In 2009 KAFF will be for the 9th time in Kecskemét


It has just been the end of the 8th KAFF in Kecskemét, but the organising committee is preparing for the next review with a full blast, which will be in the schedule of the number of nine. Therefore it will be organised in 2009, and this will be the 9th Kecskemét Animation Film Festival.


KAFF has been a member of the Association of European Film Festival for years – its prestige is already guaranteed also by this. However, since the spring of this year the festival makers of Kecskemét have received a new professional acknowledgment: KAFF has been voted into the 13 most prestigious animation film festivals of the world. At the film festival organised in Hangchou of China (CICAF), Ferenc Mikulás festival director represented Kecskemét, and his signature decorates the “white book of the animation festivals of the 21st century”. The 13’s also accepted a joint statement on the occasion of the Chinese discussion and meeting, in which they defined the recommendations related to the organising of festivals and the intention of supporting one another.
For Kecskemét this acknowledgment means that the film festival brought to life in 1985 not only lost its splendour in the past 23 years, but it rather became more famous, renowned and important.
This is indicated also by that the award-winning films in Kecskemét are shown all around the world. Primarily naturally at the partner festivals, such as in France, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, or in the United States and Canada, but they also take a role in the programme of numerous alternative film festival programmes. In Hungary the award-winning films of KAFF have been screened at several film festivals and film ceremonies, such as in Budapest, Pécs and also in Szeged.
The major prize-winning artists of the 2007 film festival, the twenty something Ducki Tomek, can also thank a scholarship to the suddenly came popularity. Of his excellent film, the Lifeline, even after the festival in Kecskemét numerous appreciation and substance finding analysis has appeared in the local film papers, while the major prize of the festival and in addition several foreign festival awards resulted in that the young film artist could won a prestigious English professional scholarship.
- It was to my pleasure that I also personally could help this young, very talented artist in winning this English scholarship – said Ferenc Mikulás festival director, who says that the success of Ducki Tomek is a signal for the local animation film youth, that the career is open.
In 2007 it was shown, and for both the middle generation, both the “great old-timers” of animation it has become clear how much power is in the young – said Ferenc Mikulás. Their artistic power and experimental spirit was indicated in the field of those with their first film, and also in the signal films of the graduating students of MOME. Now after the knowledge of the awards we can say that KAFF 2007 was primarily the festival of the young. We gave an opportunity to many young talents for introducing themselves, however, we became indebted both for us, both to the general public to determine, what is really the animation film of the new generation like?
I sense – said Ferenc Mikulás – that a new kind of folk art is born also in Hungary, this is computer animation. It can be accessible for everyone, it can be easily learned, accordingly many question its artistic value. They consider it as an experiment, which lacks the required film or fine arts base, therefore they also reject it. At the 2009 festival we would like it if the local experts of film arts, the aesthetes and the film historians, and themselves the creators would determine – at meetings, and at round table discussions – what characteristics are given, and what gives the value of today’s contemporary animation.
In connection with this the college students studying in film, and the art and industrial art schools can make signal films, and KAFF presents a new screening, exhibition and entertainment opportunity for them with that by cooperating with the city management of Kecskemét they will open the City Cinema between the 17th and the 21st of June 2009. As a new location of the film festival the youth will have an opportunity of an alternative “kaffogation” in the cinema. The films entered will be qualified by a jury, and there will also be awards.
Opening to the young is also strengthened by the fact that in addition to the regular children’s jury in 2009 a students’ jury will also be there, into which those higher education institutions may delegate members, where film training takes place. The jury president of Hungarian films will be the Oscar-award winner Ferenc Rofusz.
The 2009, now the 9th KAFF chose the motto the lines of Kodály. Let’s be Hungarians in Europe, let’s be Europeans in Hungary – in the motto of this thought Europe is welcome as a guest in Kecskemét in the next year. More than twenty European – and of course oversees – films are awaited to the 6th International Festival of Animated Feature Films and TV Specials, organised simultaneously with the 9th KAFF. According to the plans of the organisers at the 3 regular locations – the Erdei Ferenc Education Centre, the Youth Home and the main square – at least 400 films can be viewed by the audience. There will be a showcase of the productions of the English, Portuguese, Belgian, Czech, Slovakian and Slovenian partner festivals, then we can see the new animation films made in the most famous European workshops, and prestigious professional presentations will also be a part of the programme. While the films of the Hungarian artists – in the aspect of the Kodály idea – the film artists and the film fans of Europe can get acquainted with at the various festivals.
The countdown has begun, the festival organisers of Kecskemét are already working on that in next June the close to 500 guests of local and international animation repeatedly will have a good time in the “famous” city.
 
KECSKEMÉTI ANIMÁCIÓS FILMFESZTIVÁL
6000 Kecskemét, Liszt Ferenc u. 21.
Tel: 76/ 481-788, Fax: 481-787
E-mail: kfilm@kecskemetfilm.hu
Web: www.kaff.hu