Spain’s WEIRD Market Toasts Successful Edition & Animated Award Winners

The Weird Market recently wrapped its 16th edition, marking record figures that confirm the Spanish event’s important role in the animation and video game industry and for the general public. This year, with an enhanced professional area, the number of registered participants exceeded 580 (and more than 160 companies), as well as 180 selected projects, more than 690 B2B meetings between professionals and more than 500 job interviews held during the recruitment day.

“We are in a great moment as a sector and as an event itself. The numbers support the comments that attendees share year after year. Weird Market is key to create synergies as an industry catalyst and talent incubator,” says director José Luis Farias.

One of the highlights of 2024 event was the section dedicated to bringing together domestic and international investors with production companies and animation, video game and new media studios, in order to help finance productions within the sector and promote their growth. This initiative, called “Weird Invest,” was presented with the support of ICEX, Spain Audiovisual Hub, Europa Creativa MEDIA, the Ministry of Culture, the Valencian Institute of Culture, the Valencia City Council and the Valencia Provincial Council.

One of the keynote speakers was Javier Ponce, from the Spanish Society for Technological Transformation (SETT), who pointed out that the audiovisual sector in Spain will receive a significant boost with the allocation of 1.5 billion euros in new financial instruments (half of which will go to financing and the other half to the capitalization of audiovisual companies). These funds are part of a new phase of the “Spain Audiovisual Hub of Europe Plan”, which seeks to establish the country as a benchmark in the industry. SETT will be responsible for managing this second wave of funds, coming from the Recovery Plan, aimed at boosting the sector’s growth.

The event also announced its list of winners, which includes the most outstanding projects and short films. One of the longest running awards is the Movistar Plus+ Short Project Award, which went to The Truth Rejects You, Cornelius by Marc Torices and Khris Cembe; while Catwalk by Lidia Luna, Toni Mortero and Omayra González won the Best Young Creator Series Project Award.

In this area of projects, the Market aims to continue being a support for the Spanish audiovisual industry, and RTVE has created a new award: “RTVE-Weird Market Talent Award for the best animated short film project.”

RTVE, Spain’s public media entity, is also responsible for choosing the three most outstanding video game projects among those selected in the official Market catalog: Neon Blood by Chaoticbrain Studios won the RTVE Interactivo/Fallo de sistema Award for Best Video Game Project; Worldless by Noname Studios and Coatsink received the RTVE Interactivo/Fallo de sistema Award for Most Innovative Video Game Project; and Barraka by Zomorro Studio and  Dojo System, RTVE Interactivo/Fallo de sistema Award for the Weird Plus Video Game Project. All the awarded projects originate in Spain.

Another of the special moments of this Weird Market edition was when Diboos (Spanish Federation of Animation and Visual Effects Producers) presented its first Honorary Diboos award to filmmaker Pablo Berger. This was a special tribute to highlight the contribution of the director of Robot Dreams to the industry by promoting Spanish animation both within and outside of Spain.

The director of the Oscar-nominated feature film noted in his speech that “the whole team deserves it” and that this part of the Spanish audiovisual sector is an example to follow, arousing admiration and respect worldwide “and this is not a subjective view, it is objective… the numbers speak for themselves.”

The 16th edition of Weird Market is co-organized by the Valencian Institute of Culture, attached to the Council of Education, Culture, Universities and Employment. It also has the main sponsorship of Europa Creativa MEDIA, the Valencia City Council and the Valencia Provincial Council; the participation of the Ministry of Culture, ICEX, Valencia Innovation Capital, Acción Cultural Española through the Program for the Internationalization of Spanish Culture (PICE) and the ICAA; it is also sponsored by À Punt, HP, and has the support of IndieDevDay, Tangram Solutions,  AVEPA, Animat, Movistar Plus+ and RTVE, among others.

Visit weirdmarket.es for more information.