JOHN VARDAR CONTRA LA GALAXIA

Festival note by Alejandro Yamgotchian

An epic space odyssey packed with aliens, monsters, and black holes — a sci-fi parody with a distinctly Balkan flavour (the film winks at countless genre classics beyond sci-fi) featuring artists from Croatia, Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary and North Macedonia. It is also a spirited rebuttal to today’s industrial animation, in the spirit of The Emperor’s New Groove (Disney) as a brilliant hand-drawn riposte to early CGI. Far closer to Pixar’s original creative ethos, this is “a space comedy for the whole family promoting tolerance, peace, respect for other cultures, and the importance of optimism and positivity,” as award-winning director Goce Cvetanovski — who has also worked commercially for Ed Sheeran and Faith No More — has said. “In this crazy world we all need to laugh a little. I always wanted to tell a story of friendship and love set in the universe of cult sci-fi series, but told as a parody. While humour is the main engine of the film, it addresses serious issues like interracial tolerance and friendship, and delivers a powerful anti-war message.”