Spanish animation is experiencing a historic boom. Shorts and features from the country are achieving notable success at festivals and the box office, while Spanish artists are contributing to some of the most influential film and TV productions coming from Hollywood today.
The question now is what steps should be taken to build on recent success.
Spaniard Almu Redondo won an Emmy this year for her work on the Cartoon Saloon-produced “Star Wars: Visions” episode “Screecher’s Reach,” and Pablo Berger’s Spanish feature “Robot Dreams” was nominated for a 2024 animated feature Academy Award. Few artists had as profound an impact on the aesthetic of the “Spider-Verse” films as Alberto Mielgo, who also won the animated short Oscar in 2022 for his film “The Windshield Wiper.”
Spanish artists flourishing abroad is a longstanding tradition, but one that may be waning. Many animation professionals are now staying in Spain, while...
The question now is what steps should be taken to build on recent success.
Spaniard Almu Redondo won an Emmy this year for her work on the Cartoon Saloon-produced “Star Wars: Visions” episode “Screecher’s Reach,” and Pablo Berger’s Spanish feature “Robot Dreams” was nominated for a 2024 animated feature Academy Award. Few artists had as profound an impact on the aesthetic of the “Spider-Verse” films as Alberto Mielgo, who also won the animated short Oscar in 2022 for his film “The Windshield Wiper.”
Spanish artists flourishing abroad is a longstanding tradition, but one that may be waning. Many animation professionals are now staying in Spain, while...
- 5/19/2024
- by Jamie Lang
- Variety Film + TV
Usman Riaz’s Annecy selection “The Glassworker” has unveiled its first trailer. The film will also screen at the Cannes Film Market and has set a date for theatrical release in Pakistan.
The animated film will debut in Annecy’s Contrechamp strand. Targeting family audiences, the film is set in a location loosely inspired by Pakistan, telling the story of young Vincent and his father Tomas, who run the finest glass workshop in the country and find their lives upended by an approaching war in which they want no part. The arrival in their town of an army colonel and his young talented, violinist daughter, Alliz, shakes their reality and tests the relationship between father and son.
The voice cast includes Art Malik (“Man Like Mobeen”), Sacha Dhawan (“Wolf”), Anjli Mohindra (“The Lazarus Project”) and Tony Jayawardena (“Ackley Bridge”). It is produced by Riaz’s Pakistan-based Mano Animation Studios and...
The animated film will debut in Annecy’s Contrechamp strand. Targeting family audiences, the film is set in a location loosely inspired by Pakistan, telling the story of young Vincent and his father Tomas, who run the finest glass workshop in the country and find their lives upended by an approaching war in which they want no part. The arrival in their town of an army colonel and his young talented, violinist daughter, Alliz, shakes their reality and tests the relationship between father and son.
The voice cast includes Art Malik (“Man Like Mobeen”), Sacha Dhawan (“Wolf”), Anjli Mohindra (“The Lazarus Project”) and Tony Jayawardena (“Ackley Bridge”). It is produced by Riaz’s Pakistan-based Mano Animation Studios and...
- 4/26/2024
- by Naman Ramachandran
- Variety Film + TV
Exclusive: Emmy award-winning Indian producer Apoorva Bakshi (Delhi Crime) has boarded The Glassworker, Pakistan’s first ever Hayao Miyazaki-style animated feature, as an executive producer.
Bakshi, who is producing through her Awedacious Originals banner, joins a growing team of supporters of the ground-breaking 2D hand-drawn project, directed by Pakistan’s Usman Riaz and produced through his Karachi-based Mano Animation Studios.
Spanish animation producer Manuel Cristobal is also on board the project, while Paris-based sales agency Charades picked up international rights after it was presented as a work-in-progress at Annecy International Animation Film Festival last year. The film is currently in post-production and scheduled for delivery in August.
Set in a location loosely inspired by Pakistan, the film revolves around a father and son who run the finest glass workshop in the country but find their lives upended by an approaching war in which they want no part.
A long-time...
Bakshi, who is producing through her Awedacious Originals banner, joins a growing team of supporters of the ground-breaking 2D hand-drawn project, directed by Pakistan’s Usman Riaz and produced through his Karachi-based Mano Animation Studios.
Spanish animation producer Manuel Cristobal is also on board the project, while Paris-based sales agency Charades picked up international rights after it was presented as a work-in-progress at Annecy International Animation Film Festival last year. The film is currently in post-production and scheduled for delivery in August.
Set in a location loosely inspired by Pakistan, the film revolves around a father and son who run the finest glass workshop in the country but find their lives upended by an approaching war in which they want no part.
A long-time...
- 5/21/2023
- by Liz Shackleton
- Deadline Film + TV
Alberto Vázquez’s “Unicorn Wars” is an Annecy competition frontrunner. “They Shot the Piano Player,” from Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal, weighs in as one of the festival’s most anticipated works in progress.
A bevy of Annecy MIFA unveils and score of Spanish titles, sometimes sneak peeked at other events, form part of a historic growth on Spain’s animation scene.
At March’s Cartoon Movie, only France had a larger number of titles than Spain. At September’s Cartoon forum, a showcase for long-form animation, Spain again ranks among European countries, in number of projects set to be pitched, tying with Ireland.
With an annual turnover of 950 million in 2021, according to Spanish trade promotion board Icex, Spain also has first-class animation schools and specialized events such as Ibero-American Quirino Awards, Valencia’s Weird Market, Pamplona’s Next Lab Finance & Tech and Lleida’s Animac.
Produced with Netflix by Madrid-based Spa Studios,...
A bevy of Annecy MIFA unveils and score of Spanish titles, sometimes sneak peeked at other events, form part of a historic growth on Spain’s animation scene.
At March’s Cartoon Movie, only France had a larger number of titles than Spain. At September’s Cartoon forum, a showcase for long-form animation, Spain again ranks among European countries, in number of projects set to be pitched, tying with Ireland.
With an annual turnover of 950 million in 2021, according to Spanish trade promotion board Icex, Spain also has first-class animation schools and specialized events such as Ibero-American Quirino Awards, Valencia’s Weird Market, Pamplona’s Next Lab Finance & Tech and Lleida’s Animac.
Produced with Netflix by Madrid-based Spa Studios,...
- 6/14/2022
- by Emilio Mayorga
- Variety Film + TV
Returning to an on-site edition, Cartoon Springboard, an animation pitching get-together for on-the-rise European animators, ran Oct. 26-28 in Valencia, with 174 participants taking part.
Buzz projects included an LGBT roller derby story, “Riot5,” as well as a film, “The Mission,” imagining all of the world’s money being destroyed, and “Exit Tales,” an animated short about children fleeing their home countries.
Altogether, 24 projects were pitched from 39 animation schools, including 17 TV shows, and five features.
The animated TV series “Riot5,” from Denmark’s Violeta Fellay, an alum of The Animation Workshop/Via University College, draws upon her experience as a queer woman. Seeking to depict a wider range of female characters than the norm, the story for the young adult TV series follows an all-female roller derby team caught up with different issues in their lives, between practicing sport.
“The Mission” also caught attention. Set in 2023, this Belgian project from the...
Buzz projects included an LGBT roller derby story, “Riot5,” as well as a film, “The Mission,” imagining all of the world’s money being destroyed, and “Exit Tales,” an animated short about children fleeing their home countries.
Altogether, 24 projects were pitched from 39 animation schools, including 17 TV shows, and five features.
The animated TV series “Riot5,” from Denmark’s Violeta Fellay, an alum of The Animation Workshop/Via University College, draws upon her experience as a queer woman. Seeking to depict a wider range of female characters than the norm, the story for the young adult TV series follows an all-female roller derby team caught up with different issues in their lives, between practicing sport.
“The Mission” also caught attention. Set in 2023, this Belgian project from the...
- 11/1/2021
- by Liza Foreman
- Variety Film + TV
“Welcome to Siegheilkirchen” not only honors Manfred Deix, one of Austria’s most revered cartoonists and satirists, it also marks the country’s first ever animated feature film.
Unspooling in Gala Premieres at the Zurich Film Festival, the film follows a kid whose immense talent for drawing gives him an outlet for his discontent while growing up in a small conservative Austrian town, where Nazi sympathy is still very prevalent. Deix initially worked on the project as art director before his death in 2016.
For Marcus H. Rosenmüller, “Welcome to Siegheilkirchen” has been long in the making. It was the first animated film for the celebrated German filmmaker, who joined the project nearly a decade ago after producers Josef Aichholzer and Ernst Geyer convinced Deix of making a film based on his work and partly inspired by his life.
Development on the film took several years and the process became a learning experience for Rosenmüller,...
Unspooling in Gala Premieres at the Zurich Film Festival, the film follows a kid whose immense talent for drawing gives him an outlet for his discontent while growing up in a small conservative Austrian town, where Nazi sympathy is still very prevalent. Deix initially worked on the project as art director before his death in 2016.
For Marcus H. Rosenmüller, “Welcome to Siegheilkirchen” has been long in the making. It was the first animated film for the celebrated German filmmaker, who joined the project nearly a decade ago after producers Josef Aichholzer and Ernst Geyer convinced Deix of making a film based on his work and partly inspired by his life.
Development on the film took several years and the process became a learning experience for Rosenmüller,...
- 9/26/2021
- by Ed Meza
- Variety Film + TV
Salvador Simó’s animated feature won at the European Film Awards in December.
BFI Distribution has secured UK and Ireland rights to award-winning animation Buñuel In The Labyrinth Of The Turtles in a deal with Madrid-based sales company Latido Films.
As cinemas remain closed in the UK due to the Covid-19 lockdown, the film will launch on streaming platform BFI Player on July 9 and will be made available to other digital platforms as a transactional title.
When theatres do begin opening, BFI Distribution plan to make the film available for theatrical exhibition, including at London’s BFI Southbank. The UK...
BFI Distribution has secured UK and Ireland rights to award-winning animation Buñuel In The Labyrinth Of The Turtles in a deal with Madrid-based sales company Latido Films.
As cinemas remain closed in the UK due to the Covid-19 lockdown, the film will launch on streaming platform BFI Player on July 9 and will be made available to other digital platforms as a transactional title.
When theatres do begin opening, BFI Distribution plan to make the film available for theatrical exhibition, including at London’s BFI Southbank. The UK...
- 6/12/2020
- by 1100453¦Michael Rosser¦9¦
- ScreenDaily
On August 16, the animated story of one of the world’s greatest filmmakers, Luis Buñuel, and how he became who he became will be in theaters in the U.S.
Animated out of Spain by The Glow Animation Studio created by Manuel Cristóbal, Salvador Simó and José Mª Fdez. de Vega, in Almendralejo, the region called Extremadura in the Southwest of Spain, this film is shot where Luis Buñuel filmed his documentary Las Hurdas, or Land Without Bread in the 1930s. Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles, based on the graphic novel of the same name by Fermín Solís is about the people in this extreme poverty pocket in Franco’s Spain.
We develop and produce animation and visual effects in projects of our own creation or in co-production. We like to work on independent projects, with a different, innovative vision of the world of entertainment and an international vocation.
Animated out of Spain by The Glow Animation Studio created by Manuel Cristóbal, Salvador Simó and José Mª Fdez. de Vega, in Almendralejo, the region called Extremadura in the Southwest of Spain, this film is shot where Luis Buñuel filmed his documentary Las Hurdas, or Land Without Bread in the 1930s. Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles, based on the graphic novel of the same name by Fermín Solís is about the people in this extreme poverty pocket in Franco’s Spain.
We develop and produce animation and visual effects in projects of our own creation or in co-production. We like to work on independent projects, with a different, innovative vision of the world of entertainment and an international vocation.
- 8/14/2019
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Buenos Aires — Gkids, the U.S. distributor of ten Best Animated Feature Oscar nominations including this year’s “The Breadwinner,” has acquired North American rights to Spaniard Salvador Simó’s “Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles.” Gkids will release the film theatrically next year.
The animated feature is sold worldwide by Spain’s Latido Films; the all-rights deal was negotiated by Gkids’ CEO and founder Eric Beckman and Latido’s Antonio Saura.
The acquisition comes after “Buñuel” world premiered at this year’s Gkids co-run Animation Is Film Festival in Los Angeles, snagging a Special Jury Prize for its innovative handling of unexpected subject matter and positive reviews.
“Frankly, it was a brilliant choice on the part of director Salvador Simo to use such an expressionistic medium [as animation] to examine how surrealist filmmaker Luis Buñuel bent reality to his own ends in the making of 1933 documentary “Las Hurdes” (aka “Land...
The animated feature is sold worldwide by Spain’s Latido Films; the all-rights deal was negotiated by Gkids’ CEO and founder Eric Beckman and Latido’s Antonio Saura.
The acquisition comes after “Buñuel” world premiered at this year’s Gkids co-run Animation Is Film Festival in Los Angeles, snagging a Special Jury Prize for its innovative handling of unexpected subject matter and positive reviews.
“Frankly, it was a brilliant choice on the part of director Salvador Simo to use such an expressionistic medium [as animation] to examine how surrealist filmmaker Luis Buñuel bent reality to his own ends in the making of 1933 documentary “Las Hurdes” (aka “Land...
- 12/12/2018
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
Perhaps by January, the animated story of Luis Buñuel and how he became who he became will be on the festival circuit. Animated out of Spain by The Glow Animation Studio created by Manuel Cristóbal, Salvador Simó and José Mª Fdez. de Vega, in Almendralejo, in the region of Extremadura in the Southwest of Spain where Las Hurdes is also located where Luis Buñuel filmed his documentary Land Without Bread in the 1930s and the location where the studio is shooting its first feature film, Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles based on the graphic novel of the same name by Fermín Solís.
We develop and produce animation and visual effects in projects of our own creation or in co-production. We like to work on independent projects, with a different, innovative vision of the world of entertainment and an international vocation.
1930, Paris, the film L’Age d’Or is a scandal and Luis Buñuel,...
We develop and produce animation and visual effects in projects of our own creation or in co-production. We like to work on independent projects, with a different, innovative vision of the world of entertainment and an international vocation.
1930, Paris, the film L’Age d’Or is a scandal and Luis Buñuel,...
- 8/27/2017
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Exclusive: New project is a “provocative” look at the Us prison system.
Submarine, the independent film and transmedia production company set up by Femke Wolting and Bruno Felix in 2000, is to co produce American Jail (working title), the latest film from Roger Ross Williams, director of Oscar-nominated Life, Animated (pictured).
Billed as “a deeply personal and provocative film,” the feature doc follows Roger Ross Williams as he sets out on a journey to understand the complex forces at work in America’s prison system.
He embarks on a search for solutions to help the community he came from in Easton, Pennsylvania. Other partners on the project include CNN, BBC and the Why foundation.
Submarine is also producing another provocative new feature doc The Method Bellingcat, about online group Bellingcat (formerly known as The Brown Moses blog), founded by citizen journalist Eliot Higgins.
Leicester-based blogger Higgins attracted a worldwide following for his work identifying the provenance of weapons...
Submarine, the independent film and transmedia production company set up by Femke Wolting and Bruno Felix in 2000, is to co produce American Jail (working title), the latest film from Roger Ross Williams, director of Oscar-nominated Life, Animated (pictured).
Billed as “a deeply personal and provocative film,” the feature doc follows Roger Ross Williams as he sets out on a journey to understand the complex forces at work in America’s prison system.
He embarks on a search for solutions to help the community he came from in Easton, Pennsylvania. Other partners on the project include CNN, BBC and the Why foundation.
Submarine is also producing another provocative new feature doc The Method Bellingcat, about online group Bellingcat (formerly known as The Brown Moses blog), founded by citizen journalist Eliot Higgins.
Leicester-based blogger Higgins attracted a worldwide following for his work identifying the provenance of weapons...
- 5/21/2017
- by geoffrey@macnab.demon.co.uk (Geoffrey Macnab)
- ScreenDaily
France animation event eyes permanent home in Bordeaux.
Madrid-based sales company Latido Films is looking to ramp up its animation offering.
Speaking to Screen during last week’s Cartoon Movie co-production forum in Bordeaux, Latido’s managing director and founding partner Antonio Saura explained: “I felt that there was something missing in our animation line-up until now, something that corresponded with the other types of movies we were carrying and which involved more adult, entertaining, intelligent movies with a niche quality.”
Latido Films’ sales roster to date has included animation titles Pacific Pirates, Birds Of Paradise, and A Valiant Rooster.
The company will now be handling sales on Salvador Simó Busom’s Bunuel In The Labyrinth Of The Turtles which the director pitched in Bordeaux as a project in development with Manuel Cristóbal’s Sygnatia Films and their joint company The Glow Animation Studio .
The adaptation of the graphic novel by Fermin Solis centres on a chapter...
Madrid-based sales company Latido Films is looking to ramp up its animation offering.
Speaking to Screen during last week’s Cartoon Movie co-production forum in Bordeaux, Latido’s managing director and founding partner Antonio Saura explained: “I felt that there was something missing in our animation line-up until now, something that corresponded with the other types of movies we were carrying and which involved more adult, entertaining, intelligent movies with a niche quality.”
Latido Films’ sales roster to date has included animation titles Pacific Pirates, Birds Of Paradise, and A Valiant Rooster.
The company will now be handling sales on Salvador Simó Busom’s Bunuel In The Labyrinth Of The Turtles which the director pitched in Bordeaux as a project in development with Manuel Cristóbal’s Sygnatia Films and their joint company The Glow Animation Studio .
The adaptation of the graphic novel by Fermin Solis centres on a chapter...
- 3/13/2017
- by screen.berlin@googlemail.com (Martin Blaney)
- ScreenDaily
Spain has become the latest country to secure a co-production agreement with China.
Spain has become the latest country to sign a co-production film agreement with China.
The agreement coincided with the visit of Spanish president Mariano Rajoy to Beijing. Both governments signed the deal, which was approved by the parliaments of the two countries earlier in the year.
China remains a difficult market in which to secure distribution, with a quota of 38 international films sanctioned in 2013 and 34 in 2014.
The new agreement will allow Spanish films to be distributed within the Asian superpower, providing each co-production partner has contributed a minimum of 20% to the feature.
In an statement, the Icaa (Spanish Government agency for cinema) celebrated the agreement and highlighted the new tax deduction for foreign productions in the country of 15% with a maximum of €2.5m.
However, the Spanish film industry has said 15% is insufficent for attracting internatiponal shoots in Spain.
Two projects...
Spain has become the latest country to sign a co-production film agreement with China.
The agreement coincided with the visit of Spanish president Mariano Rajoy to Beijing. Both governments signed the deal, which was approved by the parliaments of the two countries earlier in the year.
China remains a difficult market in which to secure distribution, with a quota of 38 international films sanctioned in 2013 and 34 in 2014.
The new agreement will allow Spanish films to be distributed within the Asian superpower, providing each co-production partner has contributed a minimum of 20% to the feature.
In an statement, the Icaa (Spanish Government agency for cinema) celebrated the agreement and highlighted the new tax deduction for foreign productions in the country of 15% with a maximum of €2.5m.
However, the Spanish film industry has said 15% is insufficent for attracting internatiponal shoots in Spain.
Two projects...
- 10/1/2014
- by jsardafr@hotmail.com (Juan Sarda)
- ScreenDaily
‘The Congress,’ ‘Jasmine,’ ‘Pinocchio’: 2013 European Film Awards’ Best Animated Feature Film nominations (Robin Wright in ‘The Congress’) The European Film Academy has announced the three nominees in the 2013 European Film Awards’ Best Animated Feature Film category. They are the following: The Congress (Israel / Germany / Poland / Luxembourg / France / Belgium), written and directed by Ari Folman, from a novel by Stanislaw Lem. Animation by Yoni Goodman. Jasmine (France), directed by Alain Ughetto, from a screenplay by Ughetto — who also provided the animation — and Jacques Reboud, with the collaboration of Chloé Inguenaud. Pinocchio (Italy / Luxembourg / France / Belgium), directed by Enzo D’Alò, from a screenplay by D’Alò and Umberto Marino. Animation by Marco Zanoni. Best European Animated Feature Film nominees: ‘The Congress,’ ‘Jasmine,’ ‘Pinocchio’ Featuring Robin Wright (as herself), Harvey Keitel, Jon Hamm, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Paul Giamatti, Danny Huston, Michael Stahl-David, and Michael Landers, The Congress shows how actress Robin Wright,...
- 9/30/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
The European Film Academy has announced the three nominees for European Animated Feature Film 2013.
They are:
The Congress, dir. Ari Folman (Israel/Germany/Poland/Luxembourg/France/Belgium)
Jasmine, dir. Alain Ughetto (France)
Pinocchio, dir. Enzo d’Alo (Italy/Luxembourg/France/Belgium)
The selection committee included Efa Board Members Bruno Chatelin, producer (France) and Marek Rozenbaum, producer (Israel), as well as producer Manuel Cristóbal (Spain) and the journalists Daniel Couvreur (Belgium) and Lisa Nesselson (France).
EFAs members will vote on the winner, which will be presented at the EFAs in Berlin on Dec 7.
They are:
The Congress, dir. Ari Folman (Israel/Germany/Poland/Luxembourg/France/Belgium)
Jasmine, dir. Alain Ughetto (France)
Pinocchio, dir. Enzo d’Alo (Italy/Luxembourg/France/Belgium)
The selection committee included Efa Board Members Bruno Chatelin, producer (France) and Marek Rozenbaum, producer (Israel), as well as producer Manuel Cristóbal (Spain) and the journalists Daniel Couvreur (Belgium) and Lisa Nesselson (France).
EFAs members will vote on the winner, which will be presented at the EFAs in Berlin on Dec 7.
- 9/30/2013
- by wendy.mitchell@screendaily.com (Wendy Mitchell)
- ScreenDaily
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