Re-animation from the West

From June 10-20 Tbilisi is hosting a large selection of animation and graphics and an inspiring animation workshop by renowned Dutch artist Gerrit van Dijk in the frames of Festival Iberia uniting Georgia and the Netherlands. Festival Iberia is the culture that travels around, comes to places and people and brings a bag full of authenticity, enchantment and bright emotions. Last year Festival Iberia was swinging the Dutch city of Leiden with Georgian sounds, colours and tastes. This year, Festival Iberia is on its way to Tbilisi with a return visit of a thrilling Dutch adventure, filled with pictures and stories.

ArtEcho Foundation in partnership with the Dutch Cinema Foundation, the Theatre and Film Georgian State University and the cinema “Amirani” presents an outstanding event highlighting contemporary Dutch art-house animation and graphics: Festival Iberia 2011 “Gerrit van Dijk: Re-animation from the West”. Conceptual and modernistic, Dutch animation and graphics have been moving minds and souls of the European community for decades already. Now the Georgian public has a unique opportunity to discover this exciting new world where the guide is one of the most controversial and brilliant Dutch artists Gerrit van Dijk (www.gerrit-van-dijk.nl).

Award winner at many festivals and competitions, jury member of various international film festivals, founder of ‘HAFF’ (Holland Animation Film Festival) and of ‘NIAF’ (Dutch institute of animation films), professor of animation at the Tilburg Academy of Arts, Knight of the Order of the Netherlands Lion, Gerrit van Dijk is the person who can not only animate the pictures, but also re-animate the souls. No miracles, but miraculous mastery and talent that can be enjoyed through the retrospective of animation films by Gerrit van Dijk; the exhibition of graphical works by Gerrit van Dijk and the interactive animation workshop. The result of this workshop, a Dutch-Georgian co-production of an animation film, will be presented at the end of the festival.

The work of Gerrit van Dijk is filled with allusions, quotations and references. It represents a unique concentration of the XX and the XXI centuries’ art flavours and icons. His pieces are creation and re-creation of images, masterful and ironic games of mind that urge the viewer towards reflection, discoveries and interpretation. This festival program means not only watching, but also recognizing and reviewing known things in a different context, learning and discovering, being surprised and provoked, reflecting and thinking over, smiling, sighing and laughing.