GOCRITIC! Animafest Zagreb 2026
by Viktor Toth
The GoCritic! team speaks with Natalia Mirzoyan, Conor Kehelley, Sylwia Szkiladz and Tommaso Zerbi to catch initial responses to their award wins
Fresh from the awards ceremony at the 36th Animafest Zagreb, the GoCritic! team caught up with several of this year’s winners to hear their first reactions.
Viktor Toth spoke with Natalia Mirzoyan, whose Winter in March (Estonia/Armenia), produced by ArtStep and Rebel Frame, won the Grand Competition Award for Best Short Film; Conor Kehelly, recipient of the Golden Zagreb Award for Creativity and Innovative Artistic Achievement for the independently produced A Pint of Bitter; Polish filmmaker Sylwia Szkiladz, whose Belgian-French film Autokar, co-produced by Novanima Productions, Ozù Productions, Studio Amopix and Vivi Film, received a Special Mention in the Grand Competition; and Tommaso Zerbi, whose Portuguese-Belgian-Finnish-Italian co-production Time Flies, created within the European master’s programme RE:ANIMA, earned a Special Mention in the Student Competition.
