8KLO started in 2025 as a bet: lock a handful of teams in a room for 72 hours, hand them a shared brief, and see what happens when people create under pressure, together, with nothing to hide behind. What came out of it wasn't polished content. It was honest animation, and a room full of people who clapped for each other's vulnerability. That first edition set the direction for everything that follows.
8KLO exists to make mental health something we can look at, together, through the work of animators, illustrators, and storytellers. Not as a topic to package, but as something to sit with, make, and show.
The 2026 edition builds on that foundation: a 72-hour hackathon in Namur, and the first steps of the 8KLO Festival, an itinerant screening circuit built to carry these films beyond a single room and a single weekend.
From there, the ambition grows. 8KLO's vision is to become a European ecosystem around mental health and animation: hackathons and itinerant festivals across the continent, exhibitions that bring the work to new audiences, art therapy workshops, pitch days connecting young directors with mental health short film projects, and professional speed dating of the audiovisual industry.
One thread runs through all of it: creation as a way to say what's hard to say, and a community built to make sure that work doesn't stay in a drawer.
We've only got 50 places so form your team and go fill in the participation form.