Student film by Marty Müller in competition in Bucharest
Congratulations to our third-year student from the Digital Arts platform, Marty Müller, whose student film The Grind (Drina) has been selected for the student competition at Animest – Bucharest International Animation Film Festival 2025.
The film was created at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava (AFAD) as part of the Multimedia course under the guidance of Andrej Kolenčík, and was presented at festivals in Spain, Germany, and Slovakia.
Synopsis:
Trapped in corporate machinery, Kotek begins to question why his life is the way it is, even though he’s doing everything “right.” *Drina* explores the toll modern work culture takes and how it affects personal fulfillment and identity.
Author’s Statement:
“In the film *Drina*, I wanted to experiment with combining photography and 2D animation to create a visual contrast between the physical world and a digitally drawn character. The story is rooted in feelings of futility and disillusionment with the traditional idea of success, which I see around me more and more often. I wanted to capture the feeling of being stuck in a routine we internally disagree with. It’s like being trapped in an endless cycle of self-denial. The idea to make the main character a cat came from reworking an older character sketch – *Kotek the Korporate Kat* – which was meant to embody the strange relationship we have with modern work culture.”
