A Festival for Animation Lovers: ANIMIST Held at BAU Galata

The Animist festival, organized for the first time this year by the BAU Faculty of Communication Department of Cartoon and Animation, brought internationally renowned names from the animation and cartoon industry together with young people interested in animation.

Held on 19-24 April, the festival was attended by many names from the world of animation, including world-famous illustration artist Mehmet Korkut Öztekin, who drew the Robocop comic book; Anna Kluza, one of the lead animators of the Oscar-nominated animated film Loving Vincent; and Varol Yaşaroğlu, the animator of 'Koca Kafalar', once a familiar sight on television screens.

On the second day of the festival, which featured special talks, Varol Yaşaroğlu, illustrator of 'Fırıldak Ailesi', the first animated film for adults, shared his knowledge and experience with young people in a panel titled "Can We Create a World Brand in Animation?".

Stating that animation is a huge industry worldwide, Prof. Dr. Nazlı Eda Noyan, organizer of the festival and Head of the Department of Cartoon and Animation at Bahçeşehir University Faculty of Communication, noted that besides patience and time, the industry also requires very large capital. Prof. Dr. Noyan said: "We want Türkiye to take its share of this large economic and cultural pie. We want to create a value that Türkiye can export. The industry in Türkiye is producing. However, this is a field that will grow even further, and we want to train students for it. For this reason, we are in contact with the industry and with people who use this work in education."

"ANIMATION IS AN ECONOMIC VALUE"

Also speaking about building a brand in animation in Türkiye, Prof. Dr. Noyan said: "This is an economic value. However, not everything should be measured by economics. Animation creates a world. In fact, this requires tremendous cultural accumulation. Animation also needs to be written, drawn, developed technologically and marketed. To give a better idea of this, we invited to our festival people who write animation scripts, draw animation, create movement for animation, design characters, create visual effects, and handle the marketing and dubbing of this work. At our Animist festival, we host experts in their fields. So in the festival program we organize panels to explain that animation is not just moving images made especially for children, but also dubbing, branding and licensing."

"UNIVERSAL VALUES AND BRANDS ARE CREATED IN ANIMATION"

Also stating that cinema and animation are universal at their core, Noyan said: "There are very subtle cultural meanings in animation. Creating universal values and brands in this field is very important. In fact, if a good story with a carefully crafted audio-visual world is created, that character becomes universal. Universality must be part of the work from the outset. We create characters, but we need to work to make them better."