Open Russian Festival of Animated Film

The Open Russian Festival of Animated Film (Russian: Откры́тый Росси́йский Фестива́ль Анимацио́нного Кино́) is an annual animation film festival held in Suzdal, Russia. It is the only festival devoted to professional appraisal of domestic Russian animation. The festival takes place in late winter or early spring (in 2007 it was on the first five days of March) and accepts only animated films from the Russian Federation and (after a 1999 referendum) from Belarus made in the last three years.

Alongside the in-contest and general film screenings, the festival organizes round-table talk sessions, press conferences, master classes and presentations.

The festival was first held in 1996 at a boarding house called "Birch Grove" near the town of Tarusa. Because of the extreme scarcity of Russian animation in the post-perestroika era, submissions from the last three years were accepted. Along with auteur films, commercial reels, video clips and television bumpers were allowed.

The prizes were handed out according to profession, and any member or guest of the festival was able to vote for their favourite film. The three leading winners were given wooden planks hewn by founder and president Aleksandr Tatarskiy and signed by their colleagues. In addition to the festival, the location offered fresh air, skiing, and nearby historic sites. The festival in general was noted for its laid-back nature and served as a gathering for animators who otherwise had few opportunities to see each other in an era after the break-up of Soyuzmultfilm. Andrey Khrzhanovskiy says that it was a partial replacement for the Soviet tradition of having yearly screenings and discussions of all films from all studios at the Cinematographer's Union (which was open to the best film critics of the country). The tradition stopped in the 1990s, leaving all studios (animation studios included) with no way to connect.

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