Anima turns 30

Anima is 30 this year, so naturally it’s throwing a party. “We've asked some of the directors who've been coming to the festival for a long time, and who've become more like friends, to offer us some surprises,” says Doris Cleven. She is co-director of the animated film festival, which opens its doors at Flagey in Brussels this week.

Sneak previews can be expected from American animator Bill Plympton, French silhouette animator Michel Ocelot, Peter Lord of Aardman Animation and Kevin Deters and Stevie Werner of Disney. There will also be retrospectives from several of these guests, while Plympton - a sort of one-man film studio - will be animating before a live audience.

German animation has a special place this year, with retrospectives of work by Gil Alkabetz and Andreas Hykade, and programmes devoted to the Film Bilder and SOI studios, the Kassel film school and the Pictoplasma multimedia festival.

"It's quite a significant retrospective," says Cleven. "Germany is an interesting country because its films are rather innovative at a visual level, while often also having something to say." There will also be mini- surveys of recent films from Ireland, Romania and Chile.

The festival opens with Arrietty, a feature-length version of Mary Norton's classic children's novel The Borrowers, which has been produced by Japan's celebrated Studio Ghibli. Although not by the studio's moving force, Hayao Miyazaki, the film has the distinctive style of films such as Spirited Away. Other features to look out for include Cuban love story Chico & Rita and Technotise - Edit and I, a Serbian film in the Japanese retro-futurist style. These and some other features have English subtitles.

For younger children, there are films such as Allez raconte (with Dutch subtitles), which tells a story about story-telling, and the Norwegian film Pelle Politibil går i vannet (Pelle the Police Car Makes A Splash), which plays in Dutch.

Short films are organised into Belgian, international and kids' competitions, with a special selection for Animated Night on 12-13 March. "The Animated Night has a rather special atmosphere because we select the films thinking particularly of the night-time audience," Cleven explains. "Let's say that the programmes are rather original."

If submissions to the festival are any guide, the Belgian cartoon industry is in fine form. "We received 80 films, which is not at all bad for a small country," Cleven says. Looking across the 26 films selected, there is no particular style or subject that unites them. "What makes Belgian animation original and what we are known for internationally, is the wide variety of our films and their creativity."

Among the Flemish films are contributions from established animators, but it's even more encouraging to see the work produced by students. In Onderrok (Underskirt) by Jade De Paepe, a small boy is swept up into the dresses of giant women who dances around him. Her fabric animation is beautiful, the music and sound design haunting.

Meanwhile, in De Volgende (Next), Babs Raedschelders has drawn and painted on filmed images to produce an animated documentary about visiting the school doctor. Ahasverus, the Wandering Jew by Inne Haine is different again, telling a fable in a painterly style with touches of Marc Chagall, while Mouse for Sale by Wouter Bongaerts is a classically simple animal cartoon told with computer animation.