MOnuMENTImotion
in selection of the BANJALUKA 2015 International Animated Film Festival

The Selection committee of the BANJALUKA 2015 International Animated Film Festival have made selection of submitted films for the Panorama program of the festival. There were selected 21 animated films for Panorama program from a large number of submitted films in a variety of animation techniques. We inform you that film ” MOnuMENTImotion” entered into Panorama program of the festival. Congratulation!

Goran Dujaković, Festival’s director

I was very happy when I received confirmation that MOnuMENTImotion got accepted at the BANJALUKA 2015 International Animated Film Festival.  Banja Luka is one of the most beautiful cities in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and I have many dear friends there. Therefore I am always excited when I get a chance to present or work in Banja Luka. Unfortunately, I will not be present at the Festival because at same time I am invited to be a guest artist at the workshop “Creative expression to promote Human Rights” in Verviers (Belgium) where I am supposed to do my 11th Great Wave. But Michele Parente, project manager at forumZFD B&H, who was a producer of MOnuMENTImotion on behalf of forumZFD will be present at projection.

What I really want to write about is the news, that for this year’s festival, only one film from B&H made it to program. And therefore many congratulated me for this success. But fairly speaking, was that success at all? Did anyone think of a reason why? First of all, let’s face it, animation was never truly Bosnian thing, we don’t have a tradition in this particular art form. We do have individual authors who had very good production and success in this field, but still it doesn’t make it tradition, it´s still individual success. If we look at the BANJALUKA 2015 International Animated Film Festival, we can see it is a very young animation film festival. Again, founded by a group of individuals, and basically running on their enthusiasm. It has very trivial support by the government. So if the government doesn´t find an international festival of this kind to be interesting to support, imagine how much interest government has in supporting young (or old) animators. Therefore, we can come to conclusion that animation production, non commercial one, is almost non existent. So I guess it is actually a sad fact that only one film from B&H will be in the programme of the festival. For that is one of the signs of cultural decay in B&H.

I am still proud that at least my project is present, and I would like to thank organisers of the BANJALUKA 2015 International Animated Film Festival for this honor. Please, keep up the good work!