Next Lab Generation announce 2024 winning projects
Skwigly
The projects Catwalk by Lidia Luna, Omayra González Pérez and Toni Mortero; Martina e Guará by Paula de Abreu and The Cutting of the Forest by Vernante Amarilla Pallotti and Daniele Zen are the winners of Next Lab Generation 2024, an appointment at the forefront of the use of new technologies in the production of animation and video games. The recognized works will receive €8,000 gross in development aid, three months of mentoring and will be presented at Annecy MIFA 2024, an international benchmark for the audiovisual industry, for which they will also receive a travel grant and accreditation for a representative.
Catwalk, Martina y Guará and The Cutting of the Forest (Images courtesy of Next Lab Generation)
The Spanish animated series Catwalk is an original idea by Lidia Luna, Omayra González Pérez and Toni Mortero. The story of María, a woman trapped in a monotonous life; who, after suffering a terrible accident during a night out with her friends, her conscience will travel to the body of a stray cat, giving her the opportunity to be free.
Also in the list of award winners is the Brazilian multiplatform project Martina e Guará by Paula de Abreu. An animated series for television and mobile game, it stars two siblings: Martina (a rhea) and Guará (a manned wolf), who try to adapt to their new home, Anhangá, a magical island where animals of endangered species take refuge. It is the adaptation of one of Abreu’s own author’s projects, with more than 10 years of experience in the sector.
The third award-winning work comes from Italy: The Cutting of the Forest by Vernante Amarilla Pallotti and Daniele Zen. An immersive VR short film that deeply explores the delicate balance between humanity and nature. An experience that proposes the ascent to the top of the Mother Tree, discover the 360° views and listen to the buzz of the chainsaws and bulldozers that threaten it.
The jury formed by the Danish Morten Thorning, the Argentine Pablo Vázquez, the Irish Ruxandra G. Popescu, the Spanish Tania Palma and the Scottish Will Anderson also wanted to give a special mention to the Spanish series: Welcome to Fucking Rainbowland by Nuño Benito and Nacho Subirats. The fiction presents an agent and the happiest unicorn on earth in the city of Rainbowland, both suspect that something shady is hidden and decide to follow the trail of some missing people; the investigation leads them to a landfill where all those who do not follow the established ideal lifestyle end up.
“NEXT LAB HAS GONE A STEP FURTHER IN CHANGING THE WAY WE UNDERSTAND ANIMATION.”
The award closes four days of lectures, meetings, presentations and networking sessions held in Madrid. A golden brooch for the 12 finalists of the 20 works selected in the workshop; an area of the event that has been extended for seven weeks and where participants have developed their embryonic proposals with virtual reality tools and real-time rendering engines. With the aim of optimizing both creative and productive processes, all the teams included in this first phase have been accompanied and advised by industry experts.
Next Lab Generation consolidates its proposal as a launching pad at an artistic, logistical and economic level, with a pioneering economic endowment in an event of this category. In its four years it has mentored 70 projects from nearly 30 countries, with 45 of them having gone on to “incubation”; in its on-site part it has managed to sell out this year the more than 400 accreditations available.
Next Lab has taken another step forward in changing the way we understand animation, putting technology at the service of creativity. It is not only our work, but also that of the community that has been created over the last four years, which collaborates, participates and pushes us to move forward.
-José Luis Farias (Director, Next Lab Generation)
The 2024 edition has also counted on the presence of important figures such as Federico Moreno Breser (VFX Supervisor for Reel FX), Aneta Ozorek (Artistic Director of the Kaboom Animation Festival), Nathalie Martínez (President of Diboos) or Enrique Gato (Director of one of the most successful sagas of Spanish cinema: Tadeo Jones) among many others.
The fourth edition of Next Lab Generation is made possible thanks to funding provided by the Instituto de la Cinematografía y de las Artes Audiovisuales (ICAA) as part of the Plan for Recovery, Transformation and Resilience promoted by the European Union; the main sponsorship of the Community of Madrid through the Ministry of Culture; the participation of the Ministry of Culture and IBERMEDIA NEXT; and the collaboration of Madrid Film Office, HP-AMD, Annecy Festival, FOM and The AI Revolution.