Last month our German friends at FMX managed to treat their audience to once again an amazing edition. The world renowned conference showed an array of case-studies, workshops and presentations on the latest in animation, VFX and game-development. The coolest gadgets, fastest technologies and free old school ice cream were on offer at the Marketplace, schools presented themselves at the Schoolcampus, and for those looking for a new job there was the Recruiting Hub.

KLIK! had the honor to screen a short program full of animated eye candy at the FMX. Our creative director Yvonne payed a visit and came back to Amsterdam dizzied by the gorgeous films shown (in particular the fantastic KLIK! program of course), the in-depth tech talk and all the nights catching up with animation fellas.

What's that? You missed FMX?! Well, we guess the only thing you can do right now is check out the daily clips and better yet: start looking forward to FMX' 2014 edition, April 22-25 in Stuttgart, Germany!

We have just opened this year’s competitions for animated shorts in the categories Professional, Student, Commissioned and 3-D Stereoscopic animation! Your entry will also automatically compete for the Amsterdam Audience Award, the Young Amsterdam Audience Award and the Political Animation Award. So don’t wait any longer and get those animated beauties to our office, pronto!

Submit your film online here before July 1st.

P.S. Don’t forget to decorate your envelope to have a shot at the Most Awesome Envelope Award!

We proudly present to you... the KLIK! World Domination Award! From now on, every year an organisation, studio or individual that helped Dutch animation take another step towards total world domination will be honoured with this new, shiny and sparkly award. The World Domination Award is a ‘thank you’ as well as a sign that we believe there will be even more incredible and awesome things to come in the future of the winner. Too much peer pressure? Well... maybe just a little bit :-)

Everyone - so yes, that includes you! - will be able to propose animators, producers, organisations, etc. who you think deserve this award. Ain’t that exciting?! An esteemed, yet-to-be-announced jury will narrow the list of suggestions down to three candidates and will eventually announce the winner at the opening of the next edition of KLIK! in November. You can propose worthy World Dominators at the end of the year through www.klikamsterdam.nl. If you want to be reminded of this exciting new development when the suggestion period comes around, make sure you tick the ‘Dutch news’ box in your KLIK! newsletter preferences or follow us on Facebook or Twitter.

Can you believe it has been almost two months since KLIK! already? Excuse us for becoming a bit sappy now at the end of the year, but KLIK! 2012 was such a blast that we can't help it! Join us while we reminisce the night that followed the award show at KLIK!'s memorable 5th edition.

Saturday night filled EYE's arena with lots of epicness. People had been building gigantic robots from cardboard throughout the day, under the leadership of the cardboard masters at Cardboarders. All cardboard robot humans walked into EYE’s Arena on the beats of Nobody Beats the Drum, doing their Robot Dance-Off that eventually resulted in a glorious cardboard robot fight...

Meanwhile in EYE's Cinema 2 DJ Brother Boogaloo spinned some sweet rock ‘n roll tunes. Simultaniously VJ-duo Glitterende Eenhoorn & Menah asked the audience the question “What happens in your favorite violent film scene?” which Menah depicted in some pretty disturbing drawings... Mixed together with Glitterende Eenhoorn’s live produced imagery, these two supremely sweet folks produced some flavorsome visuals on the spot. (Their newest project was just released online by the way – a gorgeous music video for Clean Pete!)

The night concluded with EINDBAAS’ bliptastic danceable chiptunes and impromptu stage dives with enormous violent (though soft) props like anvils and pieces of wood. Check out collections with random impression and event snapshots on Facebook, or for the full experience go watch the KLIK! 2012 mood film made by the fantastic people at studio Mr Lee.

Happy holidays to you, thanks for making the year 2012 such a wonderful one!

From the 16th of December 2012 until the 17th of March 2013 EYE presents an exhibit on the work of Oskar Fischinger, pioneer in the field of animation and abstract cinema (and perhaps you know him from his sequence in Disney's Fantasia?).

Aren't you a lucky KLIK! follower now! We can make 3 of you happy with 2 exhibition tickets each, so move over to our Facebook or Twitter and simply let us know that you want the tickets! Winners will be notified on December 16.

The exhibit Oskar Fischinger (1900-1967): Experiments in Cinematic Abstraction takes place in EYE, Amsterdam and is a cooperation with the Center for Visual Music in Los Angeles. Find more info on EYE's website.

(Image © Center for Visual Music)