Happy New Year, the Romanian animated short film directed by Radu Gaciu and produced by Adriana Bumbeș through Ariadna Films, has been selected for the Official Competition of the Encounters Film Festival. The film will have its world premiere on September 23, 2026, at Watershed in Bristol.
The film, set in 2009 in Romania, follows a woman who returns home on her birthday to the isolated cabin in the mountains where she spent part of her youth with her twin sister. She rediscovers a space where memory and dreams intertwine and where echoes of the past speak of the pain of separation.
With a running time of 25 minutes, Happy New Year is a fantasy drama made using a mixed 2D digital animation technique.
Encounters is a qualifying festival for the BAFTA, BIFA and European Film Awards and also gives filmmakers the chance to enter the race for the Academy Awards, in the Best Animated Short Film category. The film is eligible for the Animated Encounters Grand Prix and the Audience Award.
The movie was built over five years of work, two years of pre-production and three years of production. The animation was based on more than 60,000 reference photographs, used to build the characters and backgrounds. The project brought together a team of more than 25 people, from actresses and screenwriters to production, sound and image specialists. The film’s visual universe was created from several thousand digitally made elements, characters and backgrounds, complemented by almost 100 unique watercolor paintings.
“The film’s animation technique is mixed, a combination of digital drawing, rotoscoping and collage, in which both the characters and the settings are stylistically rendered realistically. The characters are predominantly digital drawings that were later animated or, in a few cases, rotoscoped, also digitally. The backgrounds are complex collages of adjusted photographs composed with the help of additional graphic elements,” director Radu Gaciu said.
The lead role is voiced by Ana Ularu, one of the Romanian actresses with the most solid and visible international career. The voice cast is completed by Ana-Maria Guran, Clara Angela Roman and Oana Rotaru.
The project’s journey began at the Animest International Festival, where Happy New Year won the 2020 edition of the Pitch, Please! competition. The award took the project to the CEE Animation Forum 2021. The project continued its development and production in Romania, received production support from the National Cinematography Center, and was completed on January 31, 2026.
The film is produced by Ariadna Films. The screenplay is by Radu Gaciu and Nicoleta Colopelnic, while the producer is Adriana Bumbeș.
The film’s original music was specially composed by Matei Vasilache.
(Photo source: press release)
Leave a Reply