With the Animation Exchange Forum, Filmfest Dresden offers young European filmmakers the unique opportunity to attend a professional exchange programme within the context of its six-day annual festival. For up-and-coming talents in the animation film field, it provides a platform for them with a range of aims: To build up international contacts, to present themselves with a film and a new project to both the general public and a professional audience, to gain information about support prizes for animated film productions, to attend workshops and talks – and of course to enjoy the festival atmosphere in Dresden. In other words: to extend their knowledge and make new connections.

Founded in cooperation with the Goethe Institute in 2002 under the name "Exchange Forum – Perspectives for Animated Film", each year the forum brings together 15 to 20 young filmmakers, screenwriters and producers from different countries. The 10 editions of the Exchange Forum to date have proven that meeting like-minded people and having an opportunity to share their passion for animated film is highly inspiring for the artistic work of everyone concerned. The intention over the long-term is to permit the participants to establish personal contacts and encourage cooperative projects between them. In this regard, the festival's partners such as the DEFA Foundation and Drematrix provide concrete impulses for international co-productions.

Working together with the German Institute for Animated Film (DIAF), Filmfest Dresden also intends to utilise the Animation Exchange Forum to continue Dresden's long tradition as a production base for animation film and to pass on this legacy to the next generation of animation filmmakers. In this regard, the former DEFA Trick Film Studio was located in Dresden for over 40 years. While the forum originally focused on eastern Europe and each edition provided an opportunity to explore the production structures of a different partner country each year, from 2012 the Animation Exchange Forum is pursuing a new direction. It will now function as an open international forum with Dresden as its sole location and follow a practical structure that is connected more powerfully to the various activities at Filmfest Dresden's annual festival.

For more information about the history of the Exchange Forum, see the "Exchange Forum Review" that appeared on the occasion of its 10th  anniversary in the 2011 festival catalogue. >> pdf download