Charukola Animation Society hosts student-led animation festival

With the vision of storytelling in every frame, the Charukola Animation Society hosted the first-ever student-led animation festival, "Charukola Animation Festival 2025". The three-day-long festival celebrated the spirit of art, collaboration, and creativity.

This year's festival received around 85 submissions, of which over 60 were showcased under two segments—Open Call Selection and Bangladeshi Selection. Artists from both home and abroad participated in the festival.

Among the highlights of the event were animation film screenings, a cosplay event, workshops, panel discussions, and a pre-production exhibition that featured concept art, storyboarding, character design, and more. The stalls, set up by various animation production studios, drew huge crowds of animation enthusiasts and visitors.

Speaking about the inspiration behind the initiative, Festival Director Mubtasim Alvee said, "Once we had an animation lab, but due to academic workload and other complexities, students gradually lost connection with it. That's why we took the initiative to establish the Charukola Animation Society to create our own platform and practice animation as a contemporary art form. Later, the festival was organised in alignment with the celebration of International Animation Day and to build a hub for animation enthusiasts."

The festival focused on telling stories through every frame. Speaking about this, Alvee explained, "In animation, even a ten-second sequence can require artists to draw 60 to 70 frames. Students from eight departments of Charukola — representing 16 to 17 artistic disciplines — tried to express their creativity and thought process through motion. Through this, we wanted to show how, beyond the boundaries of different art forms, collaboration can weave a beautiful story."

The festival also hosted workshops and panel discussions on the current academic landscape of animation, existing challenges in the industry, and future possibilities. Alongside teachers, professional animators from Bangladeshi studios also joined the panels, discussing how industry practices and pedagogical approaches can be connected to advance animation as a self-reliant and significant contemporary art form. The panel explored ways to elevate animation as a major artistic medium and addressed the challenges and potential solutions faced by existing animation studios.

Reflecting on the audience's response, Alvee said, "The response we received this year feels like a milestone for us. Through organic reach alone, we received submissions from as far as Germany and Finland. That was incredibly exciting and will inspire us to organise even better festivals in the future."

Sushmita Meem, one of the organisers, shared, "People have always had a strong interest in animation. Our friends and visitors gave very positive feedback about the event. There's definitely a growing popularity of animation in our country, and through this festival, we tried to promote and expand that enthusiasm."

Festival visitor Mahin Muntasir shared that such events on campus create platforms for emerging artists, which will play a vital role in nurturing artistic practice.

Mohammad Tawhid Ur Rashid is a Campus Ambassador for The Daily Star from Dhaka University.