by tereza.zivkovic -

Impulse-1

Animation has never been just for children.

As a kid, I saw the world through colors that only existed in Disney movies. Everything felt brighter, softer, and more hopeful. Movement flowed the way it does in Studio Ghibli films—alive, intentional, full of quiet emotion. Those stories didn’t just entertain me; they shaped how I understood kindness, courage, and what it meant to see others as more than what they appeared to be.

One animated film that sparked that feeling again this year was Zootopia 2, directed by Jared Bush and Byron Howard. As a sequel to Zootopia, it carries forward a world that was never afraid to talk about uncomfortable truths.

When Zootopia was first released, it stood out because it dared to explain racism and prejudice in a way children could understand and adults could reflect on. Predators and prey weren’t just animals—they were symbols of how fear is created, how stereotypes are formed, and how entire groups are judged based on the actions of a few. The film sent a powerful message: bias is learned, and unlearning it requires empathy, self-awareness, and courage.

That message was important when the film first came out, and it feels even more urgent today.

Zootopia 2 builds on this foundation by exploring themes that resonate deeply with the world we currently live in—division, inherited fear, and the cycles of conflict that pass from one generation to the next. Without naming real-world events directly, the film reflects the reality of modern global tensions, where communities are shaped by long histories of trauma and misunderstanding.

What makes animation so powerful is its ability to hold these heavy ideas without overwhelming its audience. Through animals, color, and movement, it creates space for reflection rather than confrontation. Children absorb lessons about empathy and fairness, while adults recognize the uncomfortable truths hiding beneath the surface.

Maybe that’s why we keep coming back to these stories—not because we want to escape reality, but because we want to remember who we were before the world told us to stop caring.

by tereza.zivkovic -

Master of what exactly?

For me, the decision was relatively simple. I wasn’t done with the knowledge I had gained during my bachelor’s studies. Several of the projects I was working on felt unfinished, and I believed they had a future beyond the university context.

The research I was most deeply involved in focused on Yugoslavia and the Balkan region. Coming from the Balkans is not just a geographical fact for me—it shapes how I think, work, and create. It carries a complex history of fragmentation, and resilience, but also a strong sense of shared culture, shared contradictions, and collective memory. This background influences the questions I ask and the themes I repeatedly return to in my work.

My bachelor’s thesis is closely connected to LGBTQ+ identities and rights, and to how these are understood and lived in the Balkans and then Yugoslavia. I was interested in the tension between visibility and safety, progress and backlash, and in how legal rights, social acceptance, and everyday realities often do not move at the same pace. Looking at the Yugoslav past alongside the current political and cultural climate helped me understand how ideas of freedom, community, and solidarity have shifted over time.

Continuing with a master’s degree felt like a natural next step to deepen this research. It offered the space to further explore questions of identity, belonging, and resistance, and to critically examine how personal experience can become a political and artistic position. For me, staying in academia was not about postponing “real life,” but about giving these topics the time, care, and complexity they require.