It all started in 2012 when one of the most active schools, the 2nd High School of Chania, with the manager Antonis Athanasakis, is conducting an excellent exhibition devoted to 6 illustrators from Chania. Elias Skoulas, Spyros Ornerakis, Andreas Petroulakis, Grigoris Niolis, Vangelis Eleftherios and Babis Kiagias decorate the school with their works. IThe exhibition follows, a series of meetings that are held for students of the school with the illustrator Nikos Revoulos for the art of cartooning. The meetings will continue in 2013, with the great Spyros Ornerakis taking the first lessons, followed by an old student, Marios Ioannidis.
The courses continue, while beside young pupils, a group of adults, mainly secondary school teachers, is interested in it. This creates the group that will later be called "+anima". A group of purely amateur, with no experience and relevant knowledge, deals with animation with inspiration and performs weekly meetings to create and express through the art. This is how we arrive in 2014 where, in the area of the welcoming Second High School, there is an event in which the first short film of the +anima group is presented. The event is accompanied by the talented Giorgos Pogiantzis with a special sound stand-up, as well as a feast from a host of musicians.
While +anima continues to make her films, in 2014 the Sketch Workshop of Chania is being founded, which is filled with people who participate in animation, comic and cartoon lessons. Curriculums continue and a series of exhibitions are held, which host exclusively works by students in the workshop, as well as +anima films. A new batch of young and old, sketches, makes cartoons, comics, and small animation films. At the same time, many distinctions and awards are coming. In 2015, the 2nd High School will receive the first prize in a nationwide competition, while in 2017 he will receive two awards at film festivals in England (3rd best film and also 3rd best film by a children's committee). At the same time, +anima films are selected at many festivals and screened around the world.
This is how we arrive in 2017. The Sketch Workshop of Chania, with the group +anima, decides to proceed with the annual exhibition one step further. Five years later, they have come to host in their place, in Chania, the creations of other artists. Thus, the 1st Chaniartoon - International Comic & Animation Festival is being set up, which is soon embraced not only by the Chania people, not only by the Greek but also by the whole world. It is a fact that just days after the official announcement of the festival, short animation entries from around the world had surpassed one hundred. The exhibition was hosted by 25 Greek Cartoonists/Illustrators, old and new. Inside them, Vaggelis Eleftheriou and Spyros Ornerakis, who joined the past of the first exhibition in 2012 with his progression to the 1st festival in 2017. This was also given by Giorgos Pogiantzis, who was there at the first screening of a film in 2014, and now he preached with his talent a 3-day screening, a total of 120 films.
With all these special people who set the foundation for Chaniartoon - International Comic & Animation Festival, we look forward to the future hoping for a festival that has already grown into an institution ...
