ANIDOX: Where Animation meets Documentary

The Animation Workshop, a 25 year-old animation film school located in Viborg, is collaborating with Aarhus 2017 to offer animation film makers a unique opportunity. Every year, from 2014-2017, the Animation Workshop sponsors one artist from anywhere in the world to produce an animated documentary short.

The Animation Workshop hosts the production, provides studio facilities, workstations, housing for the director, and provides production support and financial support. Anyone can apply and the producer has one year to make the film. Finally, the films are screened through  the Capital of Culture year in 2017 as well at 60 different festivals around the world.

But why mix documentary and animation together? 

The project idea was to put together two very different types of films in order to rethink the relation between animation and documentary films. The idea is to give artists the oppurtunity to engage and combine these two worlds. Michelle Kranot, the producer of AniDox, explains that by combining these two different types of filmmaking we benefit from both mediums. Animation films bring in authenticity, are good for researching for the truth and the methodology matches perfectly with documentary filmmaking.

The winner of 2015
The winner of 2015 is Soetkin Verstegen from Belgium. She has a background in scriptwriting and cultural studies, and has worked freelance on stop motion and handmade films. Now she is working on her film, ‘Mr. Sand’, for the AniDox Residency. Her film is about the discussion on how early cinema exposed children to more danger than modern cinema. The atmosphere of early cinema fascinates Verstegen, who says that even though rules and regulations used today in cinema are important, they also “kill a lot of the charm.” Through the story of Mr. Sand, she explores how children experience cinema differently today.

Verstegen said the filmmaking process started with extensive research to narrow down the idea to fit in an eight-minute short film, the biggest challenge of the whole process: 

“I like to weave a story by connecting details with each other. If you remove an idea, other ideas collapse, and it´s easy to get trapped in the story.”

The AniDox Residency has been vital for Verstegen to produce the film:

“I don't see how I could have made ‘Mr. Sand’ without this residency. I was writing it while trying out things. In a normal production context, you can´t really do that. I think this is what makes the AniDox Residency unique; it takes some risk to allow research into new forms of animated documentary.”

When asked about combining animation and documentary films Verstegen concludes that the options are limitless:

“An animated film brings so many art forms together: drawing, sculpture, music, story, film. The possibilities of experimenting with and combining these media are endless,” said Verstegen.

For future applicants for AniDox, Verstegen advices to dive in: 

“You spend a year in a time-bubble, where you are completely free to think and act independently. Think how you can best exploit this rare opportunity. And dive in the lake. A lot.”

The future 
“This opportunity has been phenomenal,” said Kranot, and the project has already received many international applications for the 2016 deadline, from top professionals around the world.

AniDox Residency has high goals, to make the Central Denmark Region central to film- and animation documentary industry, its development and production. They are already on a good way; the Autodesk Sponsored CG Student Awards recently ranked the school the number one animation and game art school in Europe and fifth in the world. 

“The ground work for animation practice is already there. It is the place to come to, the place to be, for anyone doing animation,” said Kranot. 

Kranot adds that the Residency project, with the support from Aarhus 2017, is vital for this development: “it is the reason it is working.”