With about 80,000 visitors the 22nd Stuttgart Festival of Animated Film (ITFS) came to an end on Sunday, May 10, 2015. The organizers are totally satisfied with this resonance. Despite unfavourable circumstances like the rail strike of Deutsche Bahn, which took place during the whole festival week, the record of 2014 almost could be reached. The visitors witnessed over 1,000 films in about 200 single events. For the first time two events were shown online with a livestreaming, it was used by about 5,000 people.
Every day a big highlight was presented besides the competition and supporting programme: Numerous special formats have established and thrilled the audience. On Wednesday the German Animation Screenplay Award as well as the Tricks for Kids Series Award have been awarded at Neues Schloss (New Castle). Besides the two actresses Anna and Nellie Thalbach a live performance of the Stuttgart Opera offered high-class entertainment. The German Voice Actor Award was given to Ralf Schmitz on Thursday. Host Christoph Sieber presented an enjoyable show with Simpsons director David Silverman and Dodokay at Renitenztheater.
Friday’s highlight was the awarding of Animated Com Award for the best applied animation in the fields of advertising, technology and spatial communication as well as the special prizes by Daimler AG and U. I. Lapp GmbH. The top-class winner films and a keynote by Jörn Großhans (Mackevision), who recently was awarded with two Emmys for the visual effects in “Game of Thrones”, convinced the audience at Mercedes-Benz Museum.
Saturday’s highlight took place in Ludwigsburg: At „Music & Animation“ the guests were fascinated by breathtaking musical acts and visual performances. The event was organized in cooperation with Ludwigsburger Schlossfestspiele, jazzopen Stuttgart, Scala Ludwigsburg and Institute of Animation, Visual Effects and Digital Postproduction at the Filmakademie Baden-Wuerttemberg. “We’re absolutely delighted”, said Prof. Ulrich Wegenast, Managing Director Programme at ITFS, “that we were able to offer an exclusive event like Music & Animation to our Ludwigsburg audience.”
For the first time the Game Zone took place at Württembergischer Kunstverein (WKV) this year. Under the slogan „Games for everybody“ game fans of all ages met there to play regional indie games as well as international blockbusters. Nils Bomhoff, host at RocketBeansTV & well known - not only within gaming scene - from NBC GIGA GAMES and MTV GameOne, was present and a true crowd puller. Further highlights have been the sold out world premiere of „Rascal the Little Raven 2 - The Big Race“ or specials like “20 years of Sailor Moon in Germany” with a cosplay event.
The 22nd Stuttgart Festival of Animated Film was organized with the support of about 80 cooperation partners. “Due to new partners like Hansgrohe, Stuttgart Opera and Reed Midem/MIPJunior but also Antenne 1 as media partner and the newly located Game Zone at Württembergischer Kunstverein (WKV) the festival widened its spectrum and its presence in Stuttgart once again”, said Dittmar Lumpp, Managing Director, Organisation & Finances at ITFS.
At the open air cinema thousands of animation film fans came together every day and filled the Schlossplatz very well - although the weather had its ups and downs. The short film programme during the day as well as the feature film programme got down well with the audience, also special events like GamesFlash, a flashmob of the Stuttgart Opera as well as the various offers at Festival Garden found an echo. The cinemas, presenting the competition programme and numerous further programme points, were packed with people, too.
But the festival finally had to find an end and so on Sunday the last, but therefore appropiate celebrated festival event took place: the awarding of the Trickstars, which are worth more than 60,000 Euros altogether.
CHATELIN Bruno 
