The evening program of the 22nd International Festival of Animated Film starts with the German premiere of “Die Schwalben von Kabul”: The film adaptation of Yasmina Khadra's novel shows the Afghan capital as a wound in the midst of a sunny mountain backdrop - between heaps of rubble and riddled houses, children play on tanks while in the stadium the stones are piled up for the next execution. Between patrols with assault rifles and whips, the will to live twitches with make-up and music in secret. A look back at 1998 shows the hopes that have blossomed in spite of the oppression and war that now have to be buried.

The authors Zabou Breitman and Eléa Gobbe-Mevéllec direct a large part of the perceptions through the viewing grid of the full veil.

In the Islamist terror regime before the NATO intervention, you focus on two couples with doomed women.

If one, terminally ill, sacrifices herself for the one sentenced to the maximum sentence, there is a small victory against a system in which men have no rights and women are worthless.

The film is almost too beautiful for its subject and underlines the unprejudiced view of its characters with a woodcut-like look.

Monochrome gloom and contrasting color signals

Before the evening program begins, the festival opens with 17 debut and university films in the “New Generations” series, including Jennifer Kolbe's bachelor thesis “Milk”, a comparison of humans and cattle in drastic images. In “The physics of horror” memories are painted from the nights of bombing in the war to the revolt of 1968, from the first kiss to the drill in the military - Theodore Ushev packs (his?) Life in a time capsule in which historical headlines resemble personal blows are immortalized. The depression almost turns into an apocalyptic vision. The half-hour cartoon is impressed with monochrome gloom and contrasting color signals, with illuminating moments in pessimistic dark perception and with wiping effects in hot wax painting.At the Wiesbaden International Animated Film Festival, the entry that was already awarded in Annecy is included in the “Best of international Animation” series.

Another real catastrophe of the present is taken up in the second full-length film Eiji Han Shimizu in the 3-D computer animation “True North”, a fate in the North Korean Gulag.

In almost photo-realistically drawn, always somewhat angular images, the horror of hunger, violence and total submission takes on contours that would not be possible in real shots.

The colourfulness of the rulers' uniforms provocatively sets itself apart from the pastel shades of dreariness of slavery and misery in the camp.

Many authors show awareness of the problem

German animation is represented by eleven works.

Many authors show awareness of the problem - such as Pascal Schelbli, who introduces plastic as part of life in the sea in “The Beauty”, or Maria Trigo Teixeira, who deals with a woman's decision to have an abortion in “Inside Me”.

The children's offer is bundled in the Sunday matinee with mainly animal animations from the “shell on the cuddle blanket” to “Hannibal the elephant”.

A total of 24 countries contributed 90 films to the program.

The London illustrator and animator Steve Cutts received the prize from the City of Wiesbaden's Department of Culture.

In addition, he contributes his music videos “Are you lost in the world like me” and “Happiness” as a preliminary program.

The festival begins on Friday, September 10th, at 5 p.m. in Biebrich Castle and ends on Sunday, September 12th. Program and tickets at filme-im-schloss.de