Announces Selection of Café Automatica for SPARK ANIMATION 2025 Festival
September 9, 2025The pilot episode of the family show Café Automatica has been officially selected for the 27th SPARK ANIMATION Festival.
The pilot screens as the opening selection of the NOT JUST FOR KIDS programming block on September 20, 2025. For those wishing to attend, the screening happens in the Vancouver Public Library (Montalbano Family Theatre) at 11:00 AM.
SPARK ANIMATION is one of the most respected animation festivals in North America, and the only Oscar®-qualified event in British Columbia.
Café Automatica follows the adventures of a human boy and an alien girl who run the café alongside a crew of retrofuturistic robots. Their daily routine is anything but ordinary, filled with chaos caused by eccentric visitors from across the galaxy and the clash of teenage personalities. Their wild adventures are grounded in genuine questions about right and wrong; while the world they inhabit is automatic, their quest for dignity is certainly not. This comedy-adventure series, conceived as a 52-episode arc, explores the challenges of growing up, embracing differences, and learning the value of being true to oneself.
Café Automatica is developed by Rymanco alongside Canadian Lakeside Animation.
The show has attracted international attention, with selections including CINANIMA 2025 (Espinho, Portugal) and ANIMATOR Festival 2025 (Poznań, Poland) alongside SPARK.
Lucy Tsoy, producer:
“We designed each episode to work standalone while building toward a larger mystery; the challenge is to make it both intriguing and accessible to multiple audiences (children, young adults, and adults). We hope to develop the full story (52 episodes, 11 minutes each). I thank our stellar team, which shared in the joy of setting the story in motion. I am deeply grateful for this selection and hope it leads to conversations with additional production partners for the full series”.