Zagreb is a ghost town in the summer. For some people it’s a sad sad story, for others an ideal atmosphere for a focused work. We love it, and these days we are happily continuing in the rhythm of a busy summer. So here is a small recap of our activities from the last Notes_01 and few plans till the end of the summer season.  

• In June we have finished the production of animated-experimental film Here There by Alexander Stewart. It is a five-minute abstract diary documenting author’s travels through Croatia and showing how memories change over time. The film will premiere in September at the Ottawa International Animation Festival (International Showcase), and it was already a good reason for an interview made by Edwin Rostron for the Edge of Frame website.  

• In July we have officially finished one more film, a co-production between a French company GASP! and Bonobostudio. Train, a film by Olivier Chabalier, is a lush 3D hybrid combining dark digital aesthetics, choreographies with live dancers and theatrical opera music. Busby Berkeley danse macabre!  

• We are very happy with the success of a lovely Sonámbulo by Theodore Ushev. It has already won three awards since the world premiere at the Holland Animation Film Festival in March: Special Mention by Chris Landreth (Ryan) at Animafest, Special Mention by Tomm Moore (The Secret of Kells, Song of the Sea) at Fest Anča and the award for the Best Music Film at Animator Poznan. Sonámbulo has been screened and booked for more than 30 festivals so far! There are also few fresh interviews with Theodore Ushev following up the film’s success: interview by Dolores Marčetić for a Croatian website Libela.org, by Vassilis Kroustallis for Zippy Frames and by Jozef Siroka.  

• It was great in Annecy! With Sonámbulo in the main competition and two Croatian films that we were supporting (by Jelena Oroz and Chintis Lungren), Vanja Andrijević participated in an interesting panel at MIFA about talent development in short animated film. The panel was moderated by Laurent Crouzeix, one of the directors of the International Short Film Festival in Clermont-Ferrand, and the other participants were Timothy Guy Leborgne, director of the The Animation Workshop in Denmark, and Arnaud Demuynck, producer at Les Films du Nord.  

• After Animafest and Annecy our films were screened at almost thirty festivals – Melbourne, Edinbourgh, Vila do Conde, Anima Mundi, Animafest Cyprus, just to mention a few, and you can watch our works very soon at Sao Paolo, Animatou, Ottawa, etc. We’ll also announce one surprise from a big “A-festival” in the next weeks. So stay tuned for more information on our online calendar!  

• Other interesting news include the Vedran Šamanović Award for innovation in film, which was awarded this year to Dalibor Barić for Unknown Energies, Unidentified Emotions. The award is traditionally handed at Pula Film Festival, the biggest national film festival happening this week in Istria. We are finishing Dalibor’s new film in Bonobostudio, Astronaut of Featherweight, which is supposed to be released by the end of the year.  

• The end of 2015 (or sooner) is the release date for three new films produced in Bonobostudio: before mentioned Dalibor’s film, Travelling Country by Ivan Bogdanov and Vessela Dantcheva and Testfilm #1 by Telcosystems, and for 2016 we are very much busy with Just Swimming by Darko Vidačković. With four films in production and few in development we have also started preparing one more film in Bonobostudio co-production. Very famous story from these parts of the world about a small hedgehog by Branko Ćopić is cooking in our studio’s summer factory. More about that fantastic Canadian-Croatian project in the early days of autumn. ;)