Graduates of the ICU School of Design Anastasia Poliakov, Maria Morozova and Camila Fashutdinov (2024, now a teacher of the School) are developing a visual concept for the international film animation festival «Bessonica», which will take place from 9 to 13 July 2026 in the form of open-air.
The Bessonnica Festival has been gathering animators from all over Russia and the world in the open for many years. Every night, big screens show the best competitive work by directors from different countries, and the guest day is about music, performances, lectures, installation and traditional carnival. The main idea of the festival is to get the audience back to the pure perception of animation, which is supported by the natural darkness of the night and the open sky.
The 2026 Aidenics are built around the kingdom of insects, a world that combines fragility and amazing mechanical complexity.
«I wanted to encourage the audience to preserve the systems around us and to look at their characteristics. From here are semi-translucent naive silhouettes, thin dredged lines, and heavy contrast swabs. This weird ecosystem reminds us of the creatures we’re becoming at the festival.»
The Bessonnica 2026 will take place from 9 to 13 July in the Yukhnov district of Kaluga province, near the village of Rylyaki.
The ICU School of Design is a long-standing member of the Bessonnica Festival. In 2025, open-air screens showed more than 20 works by students and graduates, ranging from competitive diploma projects to experimental shorts. Two graduates won the special festival contests, and Maria Morozova, a graduate of the school, was the main designer of the visual concept, creating a complete anipic of the event, ranging from polygraphy and merch to brand booking and the design of play areas.
