TEHRAN –Animated movies by overseas filmmakers from 84 countries will go on screen at the 12th edition of the Tehran International Animation Festival, organizers announced at a press conference on Sunday.

The films were chosen from over 400 animations from all over the world submitted to the festival, with the most entries coming from France, said Mehdi Ali-Akbarzadeh, the managing director of the Institute for Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults (IIDCYA - Kanoon).

Several workshops, meetings, and online webinars are planned to be held on the sidelines of the festival, the official added.

The animations come from South Korea, Chile, Poland, the Netherlands, Czech, Japan, China, France, Austria, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Italy, Brazil, and dozens of other countries, he mentioned.

Films by Iranian filmmakers will also be screened in different sections of the festival, he noted.

Among the animated movies on the festival’s feature films lineup are “Lajka” by Czech director Aurel Klimt and “The Nose or Conspiracy of Mavericks” by Russian director Andrey Khrzhanovskiy, while “My Generation” by French director Ludovic Houplain is a highlight of the shorts.

Klimt’s movie shows that life is not easy for Laika, a dog on the outskirts of a big Russian city. She is caught and forcibly retrained to become a pioneer in astronautics. Soon after her lift-off into space, a number of animals follow that are hurriedly launched from Houston and Baikonur. The animals manage to colonize a faraway planet. After a short period of harmonious, undisturbed co-existence with indigenous life forms, however, the first human cosmonaut runs ashore on their planet, and they are suddenly in jeopardy.

“The Nose or Conspiracy of Mavericks” is a cheerful grim look at the follies of the twentieth century, anchored in Gogol’s proto-surrealist novella, “The Nose”, and Shostakovich’s opera of the same name.

“My Generation” is a panoramic vision of Pop Culture as a landscape, divided by a never-ending road where art, politics, sport, finance, generalized surveillance, and ubiquitous computing are all entangled.

“Good Intentions” by Anna Mantzaris is another highlight of the lineup. It is a small thriller about people that are not always the best at making decisions. After being a woman who was responsible for a hit and run, spooky things start to happen to her.

The festival will take place from May 29 to June 2, after a one-year hiatus due to the coronavirus pandemic. The event was scheduled first to be held in March, but it was canceled due to an increase in COVID-19 infections in the country.

Photo: A poster for the 12th Tehran International Animation Festival.

ABU/MG