Cartoon Science: Animation Festival to be held at the RUSSIA EXPO

From March 29 to 31, the International Festival of Scientific Cartoons "Cartoon Science" will be held in the ATOM Pavilion at the RUSSIA EXPO. The guests will enjoy fascinating animated films from all over the world, educational lectures, masterclasses from professional animators, exposition about the history of technology in animation, VR-cinema and festive cartoon concert.

The festival program includes the best educational cartoons from famous international projects and leading Russian studios. The audience will be able to watch not only the festival works devoted to different sciences - from physics to philosophy, but also meet long-loved characters from "Fixies", "Kikoriki" ("Smeshariki") and "Umka".

The program also includes a collection of rare cartoons from the animation historian Georgy Borodin - "Animation Futurology: a View from the USSR". Free screenings of short and full-length cartoons will be held for three days in the conference hall of the Pavilion. Pre-registration is not required.

The festival will also have a contest program. The organizers have received 362 entries from animators from more than 60 countries. The 40 best works were selected for display at ATOM. According to the results of the festival, the winners will be chosen from them in three nominations: "The Most Informative Cartoon about Science", "The Most Inspiring Cartoon about Science", "The Best Image of a Scientist Embodied in a Cartoon".

The jury of the Cartoon Science Festival includes Boris Mashkovtsev, director general of the film studio "Soyuzmultfilm", director and artist Alexei Alexeev and Dmitry Chermoshentsev, senior researcher of the group "Quantum Optics" of the Russian Quantum Center. The awarding ceremony will take place on March 31 at 19:00. The festival will end with a festive concert with songs from favorite cartoons.

Festival shows will interchange with interesting and informative lectures. Guests are expected to meet with educators, scientists and directors of animated films. It will be possible to discuss the viewed cartoons and ask questions.

Also, from March 29 to 31, the "Animation Laboratory" will work in the Pavilion. Children and adults will create several scientific cartoons under the guidance of professional animators. Classes will be devoted not only to art, but also to scientific disciplines. For example, at the masterclass on object animation the participants will learn about quantum physics, at the flowing animation masterclass - about ecology and renewable energy sources, at the collage animation workshop they will talk about astronomy, at the plasticine animation — about biology. The workshops are intended for children from six years old and will take place at 11:00, 14:00 and 17:00. Participation is free, but pre-registration is required.

During the festival, the VR-cinema will be opened in the Pavilion. There, from 11:00 to 20:00 it will be possible to get immersed in virtual reality: to look at the world through the eyes of an ant, to observe the process of photosynthesis from inside a tree leaf and even to make a spacewalk from the Voskhod-2 spaceship.

On the -3rd floor of ATOM there will be an interactive exposition "The Science of Animation: From Wooden TV to Augmented Reality". Visitors will see optical toys of XVIII-XX centuries — devices that were capable of animating pictures and transforming the surrounding world thanks to science. These inventions became the prototypes of holographic displays, 3D-cinema and virtual reality helmets. Free tours of the exposition will start at the beginning of each hour from 11:00 to 19:00.

The Cartoon Science Festival is organized by the ATOM Pavilion together with the Big Cartoon Festival team.