We take the opportunity that Animac has finished its twentieth edition to reflect on the current state of the animation industry in Spain.
29 february 2016
Lleida hosted from 25 to 28 February twentieth edition of Animac the International Film Festival of Animation in Catalonia that this year has registered the assistance of 27 000 people and it has received 700 national and international films from 66 countries.
In this edition, the Festival has paid tribute to the deceased Spanish animator and director Pascual Pérez, who worked as an animator in the studios Aardman Animations in Bristol and collaborated in the famous production Wallace & Gromit – The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.
Among the awards to underscore appears the prize Trayectoria given to the Catalan animator Pepita Pardell (Mofli, el último koala, The Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show) and the audience award for the short film Bingo!, directed by the Dutch Patrick Shoeanmaker and produced by Frame Order.
In addition to the usual showings, Animac organised different workshops, conferences, concerts and networking sessions related to the animation field. Animacrea brought the attending audience closer to the different illustration and animation techniques used in audiovisual production. For its part, Networking & pitch, the space oriented to the professional sector, organised this year a session of Creative Europe, the UE programme aimed to encourage the cultural and creative sectors during the period 2014-2020.
But if there is anything to highlight from this 20th edition of the Festival it is the amount of around 9000 children that have come to its facilities during the four days. Part of its success of attendance is due to the section El pequeño Animac (The little Aminac), dedicated to the child audience and that this year has released for the first time the short film Alike, awarded in the last edition of the Goya as best short animation.
The twenty editions of Animac are proof that animation cinema in Spain is going through a good period. The Animation From Spain 2016 guide elaborated by the public entity Spanish Institute for Foreign Trade (ICEX) in collaboration with the Spanish Association of Animation Producers (Diboos), shows the following data on 2015:
Enterprises |
22 |
| Employment | 5.150 direct employment |
| Annual Productions | 5-8 series and 2-3 movies |
| Movies | 8 |
| Short-Movies | 22 |
| Main co-producer | TVE and Televisión de Cataluña |
| Invoicing | €300 million |
This form details the current state of the animation industry in Spain. In Valencia, animation counts with a great representation: Ángel Gráfico (Space nena), Blue Dream Studios Spain(Animal crackers, Pet robots), Clay Animation(Clay kids), Conflictivos Productions (Chismes), Famazing Entertainment/Milky Moustache Productions (The adventures of detective Banana, The sandbox kids), Hampa Studio (Colorics, Zomvips) y TV On Producciones (The diary of Bita and Cora, La riada).
A few years earlier, Spanish industry invoiced 306 million euros in 2011, according to the report carried out by Diboos. From 2010 to 2014, Spain was the second country in Europe (France is the first one) in animation feature film production.
“Spanish animation has talent and dedicated people. But due to a lack of academic education, this people had to work outside the country and learn in a private school or in a self-taught way”, says Ignacio Pérez, founder of Ilion animation studio, the one who made Planet 51, the first 3D Spanish movie. Pérez demands “an institutional aid that we are not getting” for Spanish animation.
