There is nothing better than having your film selected at a festival with great tradition and excellent program. If you are in “festival business”, you know it’s the most exciting time in any film’s history. This summer we already wrote about Annecy and Animafest Zagreb and now we are adding two more prestigious festivals to the list!

Hiroshima International Animated Film Festival (August 23 – 27) is a biennial festival so it is even a greater honour to be selected to the main competition program. Veljko Popović’s Cyclists will compete at the 17th edition of Hiroshima, while the section Best of the World features How Steel Was Tempered (Igor Grubić) and Nighthawk (Špela Čadež). The latter had a long festival tour winning 23 awards in the past two years, including Animafest Zagreb Grand Prix. Igor Grubić just started his run at the festival circuit but has already won Special Mentions from Animafest and Tabor Film Festival in Croatia.

Cyclists is a brand new film but after its premiere in June it already won several prizes including both Animafest and Annecy; it also has a line-up of around 30 competition programs all around the world so far. One of them is Ottawa International Animation Festival (September 26 – 30), a fantastic event for animation lovers under the artistic direction of Chris Robinson. Festival juries and selection committees at OIAF like our films: Hedgehog’s Home won an award last year while Nighthawk, Dota and Hunger (by Petra Zlonoga) and Veljko’s previous film, Planemo, were screened in the festival programs. We are expecting to have another great OIAF this year!