The Ibero-American Animation Quirino Awards have announced the titles nominated for their fifth edition, which will be held from May 12-14 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 lead the way with 14 and 11 nominated works, respectively. They are followed by Mexico with nine, Argentina and Chile with eight each, Peru (six), Colombia and Uruguay (five), Portugal (three) and Ecuador, the Dominican Republic and Venezuela, with one nomination each.
The works with the highest number of nominations, four each, are the 2022 Oscar-nominated Chilean short film Bestia, the Brazilian feature film Bob Spit – We Do Not Like People, the Uruguayan series Two Little Birds and the Mexican short film Tio. 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 14, 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 & co-director of the LatinX in Animation program, U.S.), Zofia Jaroszuk (producer & production supervisor at Animoon, Poland), Kenneth Ladekjær (animation director of Flee, co-founder of Sun Creature Studio, Denmark) and Hernán La Greca (creative director & content developer, U.S.).
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.
The feature contenders also include Valentina by Galician director Chelo Loureiro, which has just won the Goya Award 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 by Claudio Biern.
In competition In the Best Animation Series category are Doggyworld by Andrea Cordones and Álvaro Ceppi, and Zander, a stop-motion series directed by Enrique Ortega, both from Chile; the third season of Brazilian series Jorel’s Brother, (Quirino Award 2019); Two Little Birds (Uruguay), a series co-produced with Argentina and Colombia that, in its project stage, was promoted by The Ibero-American Animation League; preschool series Brave Bunnies (Spain); and Frankelda’s Book of Spooks (Mexico).
Bestia, representing Chilean animation in the race for the Oscars, is one of the six nominees for Best Short Film. 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 U.K. and the U.S., 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 Tom by Felippe Steffens (Brazil), Leopoldo from the Bar by Diego Porral (Spain), The Girl Who Stood Still by Joana Toste (Portugal) and stop-motion piece Tio by director Juan Medina from Guadalajara, Mexico.
The full list of nominated works is available here.
San Cristóbal de La Laguna will host the Quirino Awards for the second consecutive year. 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 Awards 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.
