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The first edition of the festival took place on 14 February 2003 in the main hall of the St. Petersburg Big Philharmonic Hall and was warmly received by the general public, professionals and critics. From this moment on the festival became an annual event, and presents its 16th edition in 2018.
The festival always searches unusual sites to present the art of animation in extraordinary way.
For the first time in history the International festival of Animation Arts “Multivision” was held at open air in the center of Saint-Petersburg – right on the drawn wings of bridges during the night 26-27 May in 2007. The best works of competitive program were screened on the giant screen 300 square meters attached to the drawn leaf of the Palace bridge over the Neva river near the Hermitage. It was a great happening for all who came that night to celebrate a birthday of the city. In 2008 the unique project called “Small movies for a big city” was held again on a greater level with covering two main bridges of Saint-Petersburg and all nearby territories and gathered more than 50 000 spectators.
The public screens project of Multivision was developed in it’s summer open air street art project, the International Art-Forum “graFFFest”, 2011-2013. The Best Street Animation competition was a part of Multivision festival competitions. In 2013 it was embodied in new form, perfectly matching the expectations of our digital era. The public screen installation was simultaneously placed in two different locations on the globe – the Troitsky drawbridge in Saint-Petersburg and Magere Brug (the Skinny Bridge) in Amsterdam. The short film and animation program, collected by Multivision Festival and its partner KLIK! Amsterdam festival was simultaneously shown in the two cities. The screens were then connected via video bridge – so, that audience in Russia and the Netherlands could communicate with one another in real time and share their love for street-art and animation. The project was named Multi-Bridge St.Petersburg – Amsterdam.
In 2015 the street cinema competition was held in the framework of the Multi-Bridge CTC project.
The festival is always attentive to emerging artists, new technics, new discourses and contexts in animation field. The festival was the first in Russia to make offline screening of internet flash animation in 2003, it was the first cinema festival in the world to create competition program in street art animation in 2011, and in viral videos with cats in 2012.