The greatest animation festival of Cyprus, ANIMAFEST is organised this year in the picturesque village of Salamiou in the Pafos district between 19 and 21 July with the presence of a famous graphic designer, producer and director of animation films, Georges Schwizgebel.

A retrospective selection of his films and an exhibition of his drawings will be presented and he will be part of the festival’s jury committee.

Georges Schwizgebel is the winner of the Honorary Swiss Film Prize 2018.

The Embassy warmly encourages you to meet him in Salamiou on

Saturday, 21 July 2018

Exhibition Hall - 18:00 Meet Georges Schwizgebel – Reception

Neofitidios Open Air Cinema - 20:30 - 21:00 Georges Schwizgebel selected films

The full programme and further information are available on the Festival’s website: www.animafest.com.cy

A tribute to Georges Schwizgebel - Galloping Towards the Abyss

Bursting with inviting colours, sounds, and imagery, Georges Schwizgebel is the consummate animator. Each frame is a work of art, intricately timed, painted, edited and scored. There is simply no one in animation like Schwizgebel. He is an artist who consistently creates unique and ground breaking techniques, whose innovation soars beyond the radar of the best dreams of the finest animators.

There’s a romantic, nostalgic, almost classical vibe to the Swiss animator’s work.  Placed from a distant, fleeting viewpoint, almost like birds flying by a neighbourhood, we watch his characters roam through real and imagined mental and physical landscapes, remembering, desiring, fleeing and pursuing. There is music, dancing, loving, tasting, and playing as the characters breathlessly breathe while galloping alongside the brevity of being, absorbing mementos of experiences and sensations along the way.

Yet, seeping beneath the surface of these warm and lush palettes and sounds, and the many pastoral scenarios, is a constant sense of melancholy that borders on dread. Throughout Schwizgebel’s work (e.g. La course à l’abîme, L’année du daim, L’homme sans ombre, Erlkönig), there are constant reminders of the abyss, the exit that awaits us all.

But rather than embracing that darkness, Schwizgebel encourages us to savour as much as we can. He encourages us to accept and appreciate the fragility of this whole thing and to dive in and devour every good, bad and shitty slice of life that comes our way before the colours fade and the music stops.             

• Chris Robinson, Artistic Director, Ottawa International Animation Festival