Draw what cannot be filmed. Bring an idea, an image, a memory, or a dream. We will try to set the rest in motion!
Animation begins where the limitations of conventional film end. It can be a dream, a memory, music, poetry, or a world that exists solely in the artist’s imagination.
During this year’s Film Spring Open workshops, participants in the Animation Group will spend 10 days developing their own projects under the guidance of the outstanding artist Mariusz Wilczyński — a director, painter, performer, and one of the most important figures in Polish artistic animation.
Each participant will work on an original idea, using their own technique and proceeding at their own pace. There will be no single prescribed aesthetic and no ready-made formulas. The starting points will be individual sensitivity, personal experience, and the search for the form best suited to telling each story. Work on the scripts will begin online before the workshops, with three meetings planned for September, so that participants can start creating their films as soon as the on-site programme begins.
“Animation exists somewhere between poetry and music. It does not have to imitate reality — it can create a reality of its own. During these ten days, we will try to reach places that are inaccessible to the camera but easily reached by the imagination.”
The work within the group will be individual in nature. Mariusz Wilczyński will consult on the projects, help participants develop their ideas, and support them in finding their own language of animation. The only limits will be the chosen technique and the imagination — as well as the willingness to push beyond those limits.
The online sessions preceding the Film Spring Open Workshops are scheduled for 7:00 p.m., according to the following timetable:
During the Film Spring Open Workshops, participants will begin working on the projects previously developed during the online sessions.
Registration is now open!
To take part in the Animation Group, register for the Film Spring Open Workshops, taking place in Kraków from 13 to 22 October 2026.
The group is supported by ZAiKS.
Photo: Filip Błażejowski
Mariusz Wilczyński: Polish animation director, performer, painter, professor at the Film School in Łódź. He learned the art of animation himself and has been making his own animated films since 1996. He had retrospectives of his films at the Museum of Modern Art MoMA in New York (2007), at the International Forum in Tokyo (2014), at the National Museum in Warsaw (2018) and in other places. His full-length animated film entitled “Kill it and leave this town”, on which he had been working for 14 years, had its world premiere in February 2020, the of. Currently, the artist is working on a new full-length animated film under the working title “Come to my funeral in a red dress”, the premiere of which is planned for 2027.
In 2007, the New York Times called Mariusz Wilczyński “one of the most important contemporary creators of artistic animation.”
Szymon Wołek – graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, where he studied animated film. Author of animated promotional spots for the National Museum in Krakow and the Royal Castle in Warsaw, as well as the short animations Moje słońce (My Sun) and Mała kropla (A Little Drop). Co-founder of the Rzeczy collective.
Fot.: Łukasz Pepol
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