The Ibero-American Animation Quirino Awards Announce the Works Nominated in its Fifth Edition
Skwigly
The Ibero-American Animation Quirino Awards have announced the titles nominated for their fifth edition, which will be held from May 12th to 14th in San Cristóbal de La Laguna, in the island of Tenerife. Selected from 258 applications, 39 works from 12 countries aspire to be finalists in the nine categories of these awards created in 2018 to promote the Ibero-American talent and animation industry.
Animation from Spain and Brazil confirm their leadership in the region with 14 and 11 nominated works, respectively. They are followed by Mexico with nine, and Argentina and Chile with eight each. The list also includes six works from Peru, five from Colombia, five from Uruguay, and three from Portugal, while Ecuador, the Dominican Republic and Venezuela are present with one candidature each.
The works with the highest number of nominations, four each, are the Chilean short film 2022 Oscar finalist “Beast”, the Brazilian feature film “Bob Spit – We Do Not Like People”, the Uruguayan series “Two Little Birds”, and the Mexican short film “Uncle”.
Many of the selected works have passed through international festivals such as Annecy, Sitges, Ottawa and Seville, among others, which confirms the growing international projection of Ibero-American animation.
On Monday, March 14th, at Casa de América in Madrid, the three finalists per category will be announced. This selection will be made by an international jury made up of Sebastian Debertin (director of international content, purchases and co-productions of KiKA, Germany), Magdiela Hermida Duhamel (founder and co-director of the LatinX in Animation program, United States), Zofia Jaroszuk (producer and production supervisor at Animoon, Poland), Kenneth Ladekjær (animation director of “Flee” and co-creator of Sun Creature Studio, Denmark) and Hernán La Greca (creative director and content developer, United States).
Feature films, series and short films
In the Best Animation Feature Film category, animation aimed at family audiences predominates, although there are also titles for adult audiences. Brazil accumulates three nominations in this category: “Bob Spit – We Do Not Like People”, a stop-motion film directed by Cesar Cabral based on the well-known punk character created by cartoonist Angeli; “My Uncle José”, directed by Ducca Rios and set in the last years of the Brazilian dictatorship; and “The Red Scroll”, an adventure film directed by Nelson Botter Jr.
Other films will also seek a place among the finalists for Best Feature Film, such as “Valentina” by Galician director Chelo Loureiro, which has just been recognized at the Goya Awards for best animation feature film; the Peruvian film “Ainbo Spirit of the Amazon” by Jose Zelada and Richard Claus, one of the most international titles in recent Latin American animation, and “Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds”, a Spanish production directed by Toni García Martínez and based on the classic animated series signed by Claudio Biern.
In the Best Animation Series category are in competition, the Chilean “Doggyworld” by Andrea Cordones and Álvaro Ceppi, and “Zander”, a stop-motion series directed by Enrique Ortega; the Brazilian series “Jorel’s Brother”, winner of the Quirino Award in this category in 2019 with its third season; and the Uruguayan “Two Little Birds”, a series co-produced with Argentina and Colombia that, in its project stage, was promoted by La Liga de la Animación Iberoamericana (The Ibero-American Animation League). The list in this category is completed by the Spanish series for preschoolers “Brave Bunnies” and the Mexican “Frankelda’s Book of Spooks“.
“Beast”, the new bet of Chilean animation in the race for the Oscars is one of the six nominees in the Best Short Film category. Directed by Hugo Covarrubias and inspired by real events, the film enters the life of a secret police agent in the military dictatorship in Chile. Co-produced between Brazil, the United Kingdom and the United States, “Footsteps on the Wind” will also seek a place in the final list. The film seeks to draw attention to children displaced by war and climate change.
The list of nominees in this category is completed with the Brazilian “Tom” by Felippe Steffens, the Spanish “Leopoldo From the Bar” by Diego Porral, the Portuguese “The Girl Who Stood Still” by Joana Toste, and the Mexican “Uncle”, short film in stop-motion by director Juan Medina from Guadalajara.
Spanish animation adds three nominations in the Best School Short Film Animation category with works from Barcelona, Madrid and Valencia that will compete for a place with works from schools in Uruguay, Chile and Peru.
The organization of the Awards also announced the nominations in the categories Best Ibero-American Commissioned Film -with three nominations from Argentina-, Best Ibero-American Animation for Video Game -with three nominations from Spain and two from Peru-, and the technical categories (Visual Development, Animation Design and Best Sound Design and Original Music).
The full list of nominated works is available at this link.
For the second consecutive year, San Cristóbal de La Laguna will host the Quirino Awards. In addition to the awards ceremony, the city will host the 41st Ordinary Meeting of the Conference of Audiovisual and Cinematographic Authorities of Ibero-America (CAACI) and the 20th Extraordinary Meeting of the Intergovernmental Council of Ibermedia.
In parallel, the Quirino Awardss will host the 5th Co-production and Business Forum, which in its last edition brought together more than 120 company representatives from 19 countries and organized more than 700 professional meetings. Likewise, the Quirino White Paper of Ibero-American Animation will present its latest edition during the event.