Eleven-year-old Karin is spending the summer in the country, where she makes friends with a giant talking cat. So far, so cute. But there is more to come. Her father has run up debts with gangsters who will beat him half to death. The god of poverty stalks Karin. He will take her to hell, where her deceased mother is spending eternity as a cleaning lady. Does this still sound cute? If “Ghost Cat Anzu” is meant to be a children’s film, it is the most merciless one you can imagine.
The cat demon, or Bakeneko, is a well-known character in Japanese mythology. And there are other familiar patterns in Takashi Imashiro’s manga on which this film is based: the portal to a parallel world, the mythical creatures in the forest … But the devil is in the details, for comic and adaptation handle the traditions with an astonishing degree of irreverence; humans and ghosts often behave like unmitigated louts, and the entrance to hell is through a toilet bowl. First-time director Yôko Kuno and the renowned Nobuhiro Yamashita, who has co-directed an animated film for the first time here, work with rotoscoping. The quirky, cartoon-like figures and painterly backgrounds contrast so harmoniously, the highlights are so lovingly placed that one can feel, taste, smell and grasp the sultry summer atmosphere.

In a fantastic sphere somewhere between animation, live-action film and performance, a tale of Hun Tun, King of Chaos, unfolds. Hun Tun cheers you on, Hun Tun drives you forward, Hun Tun keeps you awake. He gives you strength for countless hours of overtime and endless leisure activities. But in return, Hun Tun robs you of your sleep and transforms you.
Fragments of everyday life – cups, bottle caps, pill packages – speak of sleepless nights and complete exhaustion, of wanting to sleep and being unable to. Superimpositions of elegantly animated, delicate sand elements introduce rhythm and texture. Danced narrative moments in expressive costumes bring lightness and at the same time convey intense moods, with a precise overarching sound design weaving the various levels into a gripping reflection on a very personal conflict.

Beer is out in Prague … well, actually only at a food stall away from the touristy Old Town. But that doesn’t make the death rattle of the spigot less dramatic for Hurikán, a regular who spends his days and much of his nights at these haunts of lost souls. With a crush on the stall manager, Hurikán takes matters into his own hands. Things get rolling, just like the empty barrel he wants to have filled. An epic parkour begins, starting with small mocking gestures and rapidly expanding into a breakneck chase through the drowsy but steep side streets of Prague’s Žižkov neighbourhood.
With brilliant timing and tongue-in-cheek humour, Jan Saska weaves typical genre elements from comics and action movies together, all revolving around a guy whose life is not easy. This time he needs luck if he does not want to die of thirst.

In 1945, the Red Army are advancing on German territory, the Second World War is drawing to an end. Families are still trying to escape to America, but many plans fail. Five-year-old Sophie also loses her father and mother during the flight. They are killed by Nazi officer Scharf and a Soviet soldier named Vasily, with Hitler Youth Beckmann as a witness. The gruesome event takes place in an extremely strange hotel which henceforth will bind the four survivors to its premises in bizarre ways, no matter which rooms of the truly scary building they find themselves in. Up in the lounge, where the new customers arrive one by one, down in the kitchen, where the now grown-up Sophie prepares food, or even in an alcove near the elevator shaft, where Beckmann hides with the rats. The involuntary permanent guests age but never tire of courting Sophie.
Heinrich Sabl has built an excitingly disturbing dollhouse decorated with quotes from reality for the German-Soviet history of guilt and coping. In his first feature-length animated film, on which the director worked for more than twenty years, he sends extraordinary characters on an equally extraordinary visual and acoustic time journey through the war-damaged suites of the 20th century.

Inspired by the estate of a Romanian photographer in which 5,000 glass plate negatives from the 1930s to the 1950s survived undiscovered for a long time, a touching love story evolves. In 1939, Anna Florea meets the young soldier Jean Mihail in her home village in Bukovina. A moonshine kiss seals their affection. But all too soon, Jean is ordered to the frontline. His passionate letters keep the connection alive. But when Anna must flee the site, the contact breaks off.
Their great love is fragile, damaged by war and time – just like the old studio and everyday photographs this animated documentary uses to illustrate optimism and impending loss. Anna Florea herself narrates the film: in retrospect, at the age of 91. Her warm and gentle voice reanimates the memories seemingly stored in these pictures. Those “frozen” on the photographic plates begin to move, are made to glow in oil-on-glass overpaintings, blossom and take us with them into the past.