The Festival of Animation Berlin (FAB) runs 26 to 28 September 2025 at silent green Kulturquartier and City Kino Wedding.
132 films from 33 countries compete in six categories: International, German, New Talent, Commissioned Works, Pink Panda, and Feature Film. Below are the confirmed German and International Competition line-ups - relevant for animators, compositors, and production artists looking to spot both trends and techniques. Alongside screenings, FAB hosts workshops, masterclasses, and professional exchange via the Berlin Animation Hub.
German Competition – Opening Programme
The festival opens on 26 Sept, 19:00 at City Kino Wedding with the Deutscher Animationsfilm competition and a performance by the Animanga Choir. Titles include:
The Weight of It All – Melinda Mouzannar, 2D, 2:01 min
The Thoughtless Hand – Harry Bhalerao, 3D, 4:41 min
The Wild-Tempered Clavier – Anna Samo, 2D/stop motion/pixilation, 7:22 min
Contradiction of Emptiness – Irina Rubina, pinscreen, 3:06 min
As I Was a Tree – Jalal Maghout, 2D/3D/drawing on paper, 10:44 min
Radix – Anne Breymann, stop motion, 4:14 min
Himmel wie Seide. Voller Orangen – Betina Kuntzsch, mixed media
(full line-up includes 11 German shorts)
International Competition Highlights
International Competition I – 26 Sept, 22:00, City Kino Wedding
Includes My Very Own Footballer! (Cheyenne Canaud-Wallays, France), No Room (Jelena Oroz, Croatia), Quota (Job, Joris & Marieke, Netherlands), and She and Her Good Vibrations (Olivia Griselda & Sarah Cheok, Singapore).
International Competition II – 27 Sept, 13:00, City Kino Wedding
Includes Luz Diabla (Argentina), Cold Soup (Marta Monteiro, Portugal), Dolores (Cecilia Andalón Delgadillo, Mexico), Yummy (Estonia), and The Mole (Russia).
(Competitions III & IV, plus New Talent and Feature Films, run throughout the weekend.)
Workshops and Symposia
FAB’s 2025 workshops cover a range of hands-on production topics, such as:
Animation im Ohr! – Audio description for animation (26 Sept, Atelier 1, silent green)
Mini-Mitmach-Trickfilmstudio – Stop-motion for children and families with Stefan Schomerus (28 Sept, Porter’s Room, silent green)
Daumenreise #48: Berlin – Collaborative flipbook project with Maya Yonesho (25–27 Sept, Atelier 1, silent green)
Berlin Animation Hub – Professional Programme
FAB’s Berlin Animation Hub is the professional backbone of the festival. It features workshops, talks, and Meet-the-Expert sessions that go deeper than screenings.
Programme (chronological order):
Stop Motion never stops (Workshop)
Mitate: Material und Motiv with Takeshi Yashiro (Meet the Expert)
Beyond the Face (Meet the Expert)
Mehr als Knete (Talk)
Kohle-Animation in Lebensgröße with Haemin Ko (Workshop)
Klangdarstellung with Kōji Yamamura (Workshop)
Der wandernde Projektor (Workshop)
2D Animation für Animes (Talk)
How to draw: Manga und Anime-Style (Workshop)
Stop-Motion in freier Wildbahn (Meet the Expert)
Why it matters: For DP readers, this is where theory meets production. Sessions cover stop-motion material design, anime-style pipelines, sound-image interplay, and large-scale analogue techniques—all directly translatable into studio workflows.
Why FAB 2025 is Worth Attending
For professionals in VFX, CGI, compositing, and postproduction, FAB is Berlin’s only dedicated animation festival. Unlike large trade fairs, it offers direct access to international artists and concrete production knowledge in a compact format. The competitions provide a survey of current techniques—pinscreen, rotoscoping, mixed media—while the Hub delivers workshops that can influence how projects are realised in production.
