* The awards ceremony that are held annually in Tenerife will be broadcasted online next Saturday, June 27th.
* Portugal, Spain, Argentina and Brazil lead the nominations of the 9 categories of the awards.
* The Co-production Forum, an activity for professionals in the sector, ends successfull
For the third consecutive year, the Quirino Awards becomes the main showcase for Ibero-American animation, bringing together the main protagonists of the sector in a ceremony that will be held in digital format and will be broadcasted on Facebook Live on Saturday, June 27th at 8:00 p.m. from Spain (7:00 p.m. Tenerife / Portugal, 3:00 p.m. Argentina / Chile / Brazil, 1:00 p.m. Mexico / Peru / Ecuador / Colombia).
A total of 22 works from ten countries in the region will compete for the statuettes of these awards created in 2018 to promote Ibero-American animation. The Portuguese animation is the most represented with ten nominations, while Spain presents seven finalists, followed by Argentina (6), Brazil (4), Colombia (2), Bolivia (2) and Chile (1), Mexico (1), Paraguay (1) and Uruguay (1). The finalist works were selected by an international jury among 219 works received in the call.
The Quirino Awards, which have the main sponsorship of the Cabildo de Tenerife through the Tenerife Film Commission, had planned to hold their third edition on April 18th in Tenerife and have had to change their date of celebration and format as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. The island will be present throughout the ceremony with some of its most emblematic landscapes and with the participation of professionals and animation companies that are among the finalists. As a prologue to the ceremony, an animated photocall will take place in which different personalities from the sector will parade virtually on the purple carpet of the Quirino Awards along with the finalist directors.
The four feature films that compete for the Quirino Award are: the Argentine-Spanish co-production “Turu, the Wacky Chicken”, by Víctor Monigote and Eduardo Gondell; the Argentine “The Longleg” by Mercedes Moreira; the Colombian “Reconciliation Stories” by Carlos Santa and Rubén Monroy; and the Spanish “Klaus” by Sergio Pablos.
The finalist series are the Portuguese “Cubs – Crocodiles“, co-produced with France; the Spanish “Momonsters”; the Mexican “Space Chickens in Space”, co-produced with the United Kingdom, Ireland and Australia; and the Brazilian “Tainá and the Amazon’s Guardians”.
In the short film category, the candidates are the Colombian “The Cubicbird” by Jorge Alberto Vega and the Portuguese “Purpleboy” by Alexandre Siqueira, co-production with Belgium and France, and “Uncle Thomas Accounting for the Days” by Regina Pessoa, co-production with Canada and France.
Along with these awards, the best works will be recognized in the categories school short film, commissioned film, animation for video game, visual development, animation design and sound design and original music. The list of finalist works can be found here.
Days before the awards ceremony, the public will have the opportunity to learn in depth about the animation series and feature films finalists in the last two programs of the interview cycle that will be available online on the Facebook Live of the Quirino Awards on Tuesday 23rd (animation series) and Thursday 25th (feature films).
The ceremony will be the final touch of the Quirino Month, an intense agenda of activities around Ibero-American animation, such as the Co-production and Business Forum. Organized with the collaboration of ICEX, Animation From Spain and PROEXCA, this professional platform included the participation of a hundred companies from 19 countries that held more than 800 B2B meetings. Throughout a month, representatives of channels, distributors and producers had the opportunity to learn about different projects from the 23 countries of the Ibero-American region.In addition to the Co-production and Business Forum, the Quirino month had several conferences and round tables among its activities, such as the one carried out by La Liga de la Animación Iberoamericana (The Ibero-American Animation League) and the pitch of the “Firsts” project; the round table on women in Ibero-American animation in which the associations MIA (Women in the Animation Industry, Spain), MUMA (Women in the Animation World, Mexico) and RAMA (Argentine Network of Women in Animation) participated; the talk about new technologies applied to animation production with Andrés Aguilar (Mate), Juan Cañada (Epic Games) and Francisco Delgado (HP); and the talk on sustainability in animation with the participation of the Tenerife Film Commission, Welaw and the Tenerife companies La Casa Animada, Tomavision, Mondo TV Producciones Canarias, In Efecto, B Water Animation Studios, Drakhar Studio and 3 Doubles Producciones. All these conferences, which up to date have registered more than 140,000 views, can be seen again on the YouTube channel of the Quirino Awards.
Finally, with the aim of bringing the creations closer to the public, from June 1st to 14th, a program with the finalists of the school short films category, in addition to the winners in the 2018 and 2019 editions of this section, was presented on the streaming platforms Retina Latina and Filmin.
SUPPORT FOR THE IBERMEDIA PROGRAM
The Quirino Month was the framework for the meeting held virtually on May 26th between the animation associations of the Ibero-American region and representatives of the Ibermedia Program.
As a finishing touch to the meeting, the Ibero-American animation associations drafted a letter in support of the Ibermedia Program, in which they stated “their support to our film institutions and audiovisual authorities in their commitment to ensure the continuity of our cinema and the promotion measures that They make it possible, through direct support to the sector through its various calls and programs, projects and initiatives”.
In the meeting participated Elena Vilardell and Víctor Sánchez, Technical and Executive Secretary and General Coordinator of the Ibermedia Program and Concha Díaz, Coordinator of the Tenerife Film Commission; the Argentinian associations Animar Cluster, AOBA (Organized Animators of Buenos Aires) and APA (Association of Animation Production Companies of Córdoba); the Bolivian Animators Network; ABCA, Associação Brasileira de Cinema de Animação; GEMA Colombia – Animation Companies Group; the Chilean Animachi; Animation Costa Rica; Guild of Animators of Ecuador; the Spanish Diboos; the Mexican Jalisco Creativo, Association of Digital Creatives of Mexico and Pixelatl; Paraguay Animation; Peru Animation; the Portuguese casa de Animaçao; and Tenerife’s SAVE.
Following the meetings promoted in the first and second editions of the Quirino Awards, where Ibermedia held working sessions with the attending animation production companies associations, a series of proposals were drawn up that led to the decision of the Ibermedia Program to include by 2019 support for animation projects in the development stage and reserving a minimum fund of $200,000 to finance these type of projects. The total amount of aid for animation in 2018 was $22,000, while in 2019 it became $342,854 thanks to these meetings.
About the Quirino Awards
The Quirino Awards, which have the main sponsorship of the Cabildo de Tenerife through the Tenerife Film Commission, reflect the determined commitment that has been made for years to animation on the island.
The initiative also has the sponsorship of ICEX Spain Export and Investments, PROEXCA, City Council of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Canary Islands Film and y HP; the collaboration of ICAA, CAACI, Ibermedia Program, Acción Cultural Española, Auditorium of Tenerife, Tenerife Espacio de las Artes (TEA), University of La Laguna, RTVE, Cultura Inquieta, Filmin, Retina Latina, Tangram Solutions, WELAW, Embassy of Portugal and Casa de América; and the support of DIBOOS, SAVE, Pixelatl, Ventana Sur Animation!, Weird, La Liga de la Animación Iberoamericana (the Ibero-American Animation League), Koch, Tenerife Moda, Clúster Audiovisual of Canarias, Annecy Festival and European Animation Emile Awards, as well as the associations: APA – Association of Animation Producers of Cordoba Argentina; ANIMAR CLUSTER – Argentine Animation Cluster & VFX; ABCA – Associação Brasileira de Cinema de Animação; Animachi Chile; GEMA Colombia – Animation Entrepreneurs Group; Guild of Animators of Ecuador; ACDMX – Association of Digital Creatives of Mexico; Peru Animation and Casa da Animaçao of Portugal, Paraguay Animation and Bolivian animators network.
