International Animation Festival Opens in Bucharest

Anim'est, one of Eastern Europe's foremost animation festivals, opened late Friday in Bucharest with "Crulic-the path to beyond", the first Romanian animation feature in 20 years.

The Romanian-Polish coproduction directed by Anca Damian, which premiered at the Locarno Festival in August, tells the kafkaesque story of Daniel Crulic, a Romanian accused of theft and imprisoned in Warsaw.

He died in 2008 after a long hunger strike to protest his innocence.

Fifty-four short films and five feature films from 26 countries, including China, Japan, Russia and France will take part in this year's competition, organizers said.

U.S. animation director Shane Acker, gold medal at the Student Academy Awards and Academy Award nomination in 2006 for "9", is one of the star guests of Anim'est's sixth edition.

The festival also highlights the work of Satoshi Kon with a retrospective of the Japanese director's career.

Anim'est 2011 also includes a tribute to cinematographers that developed puppet animation, including Russian-French director Ladislas Starewitch.

The festival's slogan is "Reanimating animation", a sign of rebirth for this cinematographic art in Eastern Europe, where once fertile studios fell fallow after end of the Communist era.

The Anim'est 2011 prize will be awarded on October 15.