Animation Day, part of Spanish Screenings Content, is a great success with the most prominent Spanish animation productions

Animation Day, held in the framework of MAFIZ, the Malaga film Festival’s industry zone, increases its activities and positions itself as a must for the sector

Spanish Screenings Content is part of the component 'Spain Audiovisual Hub of Europe' of the Plan for Recovery, Transformation and Resilience promoted by the Ministry of Culture and Sports and the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformati

Animation Day, the event devoted to the thriving animated production sector, was held on Tuesday, 14th March in the framework of Spanish Screenings Content, with more activities and more varied content this year.
Hand in hand with ICEX, España Exportación e Inversiones, and with the collaboration of DIBOOS (Spanish Federation of Associations of Animation Producers), the event was the occasion to bring together representatives of the international animation industry, including producers, distributors, sales companies and festivals, with Spanish professionals.

The event consisted of the presentation of five works in progress followed by a question and answer session and a feature film, as well as four roundtables at which the pulse of the sector was taken together with the associations Diboos and MIA Mujeres, and the new lines of support of Ibermedia Next were presented.

The five works in progress, which were very well received, are a sign of the diversity of upcoming Spanish animation. The international industry was thus able to discover first-hand El sueño de sultana / Sultana’s Dream by Isabel Herguera; Rock Bottom, by María Trenor, which had already participated in Spanish Screenings: Financing & Tech of the Festival de San Sebastian; the Spanish-Chinese superproduction Dragonkeeper, by Salvador Simó; 4 Días antes de Navidad, by Steve Majaury and Andrea Sebastiá, a Spanish-Canadian coproduction, and Dalia y el libro rojo by David Bisbano, another coproduction between Argentina, Spain, Peru and Brazil.

The sector’s novelties were addressed at the roundtable “Panorama of Spanish Animation”, which took the pulse of the animation industry in Spain and provided a general vision of the projects underway and of financing and innovation. The participants of this roundtable were Nico Matji (Lightbox Animation Studios), Nathalie Martínez (Wise Blue Studios) and Iván Agenjo (Peekaboo Animation), who discussed the sector’s international presence, the new technologies (in particular AI) in animation, the growing presence of women in the industry, the need to create links with training centres, and the new trends in modes of production and business models.

For her part, Myriam Ballesteros, in representation of the association MIA Women in the Animation Industry, intervened in the roundtable “Animation Day MIANIMA: Promoting female talent in animation”. She presented this innovative mentoring programme for feature film and animation series projects lead by women, together with the MIANIMA Market for coproduction to be held on the 22nd and 23rd of March in Madrid. Afterwards, the researchers Sara Álvarez and Susana García from the University of Valencia presented the conclusions of the “2022 MIA Report”. The authors of the report pointed out that the glass ceiling remains latent, although they observe a positive increase of female presence in relevant positions of the animation projects studies. Even though the sector is still masculinised, the data shows that the situation has improved, evidenced by the fact that in 2022, 43& of school short films were carried out by women. Likewise, they highlighted that the grants given by ICAA in 2022 entailed an equitable distribution of funds for feature film projects directed by women.

Lastly, the new line of incentives IBERMEDIA NEXT was presented. It is geared at the application of new technologies in the sphere of digital animation and audiovisual content with a large percentage of animation, was presented. Víctor Herreruela (Coordinator of the Technical Unit of Ibermedia), together with José Luis Farias (Executive Producer of the Quirino Awards in representation of Ibero-American Animation League), explained that the aid were developed by IBERMEDIA in partnership with the Quirino Awards and the Ibero-American Animation League, listening actively to the sector’s demands. These grants seek to generate spaces for encounters between companies and professionals; to encourage training in business capacities, executive production, marketing and promotion; and to open them to experimentation and testing, and to projects underway as well. Herreruela and Farias indicated that “this aid will be a tool for sector’s transformation, which will drive a new form of production and collaboration with Latin America”.

NEW IBERMEDIA NEXT AID

IBERMEDIA NEXT is an innovative initiative of the IBERMEDIA Programme which is part of the component 'Spain, Audiovisual Hub of Europe' of the European Plan for Recovery, Transformation and Resilience, financed with the Next Generation funds. The initiative also benefits from the collaboration of the Quirino Ibero-American Animation Awards and the Ibero-American Animation Leagure.

The aid will consist of an economic contribution of up to 150,000€, and a training, mentoring and promotion programme, including the dissemination of these audiovisual projects and of the companies and professionals who carry them out, worth up to 95,000€. The call for applications will announced on the 12th of May, 2023, coinciding with the Quirino Ibero-American Animation Awards. The deadline for presentation of applications is the 20th of August, 2023.

The collaboration between companies of the European countries who are members of IBERMEDIA and companies and creators of Latin American can be encouraged through the free online matchmaking platform IBERMEDIA NEXT PLAZA, which was created for this purpose.
Companies from Spain, Italy and Portugal will be able to apply for this new line of IBERMEDIA NEXT aid with projects developed in collaboration with Latin American natural persons or legal entities of member States of the IBERMEDIA programme. The eligible projects include prototypes, teasers, pilots, short films and video clips at least five minutes long developed for the purpose of demonstrating and validating innovative technological processes applied to audiovisual production, that are in one of the languages spoken in the Programme’s member States.

The complete terms and conditions will be announced in the near future, together with the IBERMEDIA NEXT website and the matchmaking tool IBERMEDIA NEXT PLAZA.

Spanish Screenings is the programme for the internationalisation of Spanish audiovisual production that since 2022 has benefitted from a new impulse, with a greater diversity of content, new thematic sections and a vision to incorporate work aligned with the new audiovisual narratives and to enhance the value of the entire professional chain of Spanish audiovisual productions.

Thus, the new format ‘Spanish Screenings XXL’ is an international market for the production of Spanish audiovisuals, a project with more content and a larger volume of activities to adapt to the new challenges of the audiovisual industry, with the support of the Ministry of Culture and Sports through the ICAA and the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation through ICEX España Exportación e Inversiones, the Malaga Film Festival and the San Sebastian Film Festival.

Spanish Screenings is part of the component 'Spain, Audiovisual Hub of Europe' of the Plan for Recovery, Transformation and Resilience promoted by the Ministries of Culture and Sport and of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation.