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| Interview one of four festival directors Lea Zagury | Questions: Thomas Renoldner (Austria) |
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ANIMA MUNDI 2002 10th Anniversary - Animation Festival in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo |
 Praca Animada (Animated Plaza) is the Anima Mundi outdoors theatre that holds 600 people. |
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Thomas:
"Dear Lea Zagury, you are one of the festival directors of the biggest and most important animation festival in South America. My first question is about your person. How did you get involved with animation and what is your motivation to work for "Anima Mundi"? " |
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Lea:
"I became very interested in animation in the late 70's when attending a series of animation retrospectives from Eastern Europe and the National Film Board of Canada (including Norman Mc Laren's), presented at the Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro. At that time, I was studying graphic design and I felt in love with the infinite possibilities of the art of animation. I decided to experiment with it and since then, I have been working with animation and made few experimental films. In 1998, I pursued further education at the Experimental Animation Department at CalArts. The period I spent there had a great influence on me and as soon as I graduated, I decided to create an animation festival in Brazil. I got together with three other fellow Brazilian animators that I had met in 1986 during an artist in residence program involving the NFB and Embrafilme - the Brazilian Film Agency, and we created a partnership that has lasted ever since. Showing animated works from all over the world, retrospectives, workshops, inviting special guests to talk about their work and being part of this wonderful community, was in my opinion the best way to continue learning and being inspired with animation. After 10 years of hard labor to make this event happen on a yearly basis, overcoming all the possible economic difficulties that you can imagine in a country like Brazil, I can say that Anima Mundi still inspires me as an artist. The fact of being part of an event that has influenced an entire generation of animators in my country, and that has helped to promote and change the "face" of Brazilian animation worldwide, gives me have a lot of motivation to remain in the struggle to keep this Festival alive." |
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Thomas:
"I never had the pleasure to attend Anima Mundi, but I heard a lot of good stories about. Could you tell me a bit about the festival, like who long it last, how many and which kind of screenings you have, about the audience, etc? " |
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Lea:
"Well, ANIMA MUNDI is a festival "from animators to the public in general", and what I mean by this, is that our Festival unlike many other Festivals, is an event intended for a general audience and not just for the animation community. The festival lasts for 10 days in the city of Rio de Janeiro, and for 4 days in the city of São Paulo during the following week. It consists of several programs including the competition screenings: 
Also, the SPECIAL SCREENINGS are programs with retrospectives from authors, studios and countries, or special themes and feature films. One of the highlights of the event is the ANIMATED CHAT program, where special guests from the world of animation present their work to the audience and talk about their careers, their lives and inspirations in a very intimate setting. The WORKSHOPS are an important venue to Brazilian animators, who come from different parts of the country to learn from some of the leading experts in the field. Each year we prepare a special workshop as a way to educate Brazilian animators on new animation techniques not yet developed in our country. The OPEN STUDIOS are a focal point for the audience to understand animation, and so far, they have helped increase the admiration and recognition of films and videos being presented during the festival. The STUDIOS consist of permanent workshops opened to the general public. They are logistically arranged at the lobby of the event in order to attract the people's attention and give them the opportunity to experiment hands-on with the most simple and direct animation techniques. Drawing straight onto the film leader, animating for the zoetrope, sculpting and animating with clay, exploring the possibilities of effects trough pixilation and learning the basics of traditional animation are part of the menu. For the last 3 years, the Festival also has an international web competition - ANIMA MUNDI WEB 2002 (www.animamundiweb.com.br) for animated works on the format ".swf". Everyone, except the participants, can be a member on the "cyber-jury" and vote for their favorite animation. They just need to register at the ANIMA MUNDI WEB site before the deadline. Also, this year for the first time "ANIMA MUNDI ITINERANTE" is going on the road around Brazil with a selection of films and videos from the Festival ANIMA MUNDI 2001. This was an old dream that finally we were able to make it happen this year and hopefully for the all the next years ahead. The success of the event is a combination of several elements: good timing, available funding, reliable sponsors, a worldwide growing interest in animation, a great selection of films, a good team, a wonderful audience, a constant interest from the press, and most important, the fact that all of us, the four directors are devoted full time to animation. Some of us do commercials, teach, or work as independent and free-lancing animators. " |
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Thomas:
"How many films do you usually show in the competetive program?" |
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Lea:
"There were 638 works submitted to Anima Mundi in film and video for the few various categories and 194 works were selected. Every ANIMA MUNDI screening, except for features, lasts about 1 hour." |
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Thomas:
"Do you invite the filmmakers in competition?" |
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Lea:
"We don't make an official invitation to all the participants, since the festival cannot afford paying for accommodations to everyone. Every year, we try to get some kind of support for hotels, but it has been very difficult. Usually, when a participant decides to come to ANIMA MUNDI they let us know and we add their names on a list of first come basis and as soon as we have a confirmation for accommodations we let them know. So far it has worked and we have few people visiting the festival. " |
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Thomas:
""Now a question about the selection for the competetive program. I sometimes meet you, Cesar Coelho, Aida Queirós and Marcos Magalhães at int. animation festivals all over the world. It seems to me, that the four of you are working like curators of an art exhibition, selecting and specially inviting films to be sent to Anima Mundi. But there is also an entry form, so anybody who knows your festival can enter his/her film. I would like to know, how many films you get through personal invitation, and how many are sent to your festival additionally?"" |
 Aida Queirós, Cesar Coelho, Lea Zagury, Marcos Magalhães "We attend other film festivals and go to special screenings, this is how we get to choose films and videos we like to be part of the competition screenings. However, anyone can enter his or her work for pre-selection. I can say that 70% of the participants are spontaneous entries. We do not have a Pre-selection Jury because we do it ourselves. The two reasons for this are: first we cannot afford having a Pre-selection Jury committee, and second we like to design our own programming. The four of us have a common agreement on how we vote and select a work regardless our differences on taste and our personal interests in animation. So far, we don't plan to change this formula, because all these years it has proved to be successful. " |
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Thomas:
"Can you describe the artistic concept of your festival? Do you concentrate on a special segment of the animation production or would you say, Anima Mundi is open for everything between art and industry?" |
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Lea:
"The festival wants to present both the artistic and commercial worlds in animation. There is art and there is an industry that helps part of the artistic side of animation to survive. We consider what the general audience would expect and enjoy from an entertainment perspective, even though we won't compromise what we believe is a good screening. We like to combine in the same program dark, dense, abstract experimental films or videos alongside with other light and funny cartoons. It seems to work both ways, people that don't appreciate certain style or form of animation, seems to be open to it when it is shown against work which they are more familiar to. Also, we never present a screening of shorts that lasts longer than an hour, except if it's a feature. It is a Festival, a celebration, a carnival that shows a variety of styles, illusions, stories and dreams, and allows people to experience for themselves the effects and emotions of animation. We also have a specific screening - PORTFOLIO, where studios and commercial companies present their work to an audience that has a specific interest in this area. As directors we can indulge in our personal tastes without being too worried about the popular response when we organize some of the SPECIAL SCREENINGS. However, we recognize that the audience's response and open mindness towards more unusual screenings can be positively affected by the way a program is properly promoted. If you highlight the particular and extraordinary aspects of a special program, you will get the audience curious and interested in experiencing new works. " |
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Thomas:
"How is the economic situation of the festival? Do you have to do a lot of voluntary work? " |
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Lea:
"As I said before, the economy is very unstable in Brazil. We have been fortunate to have PETROBRAS (State owned Petroleum Company) as the major sponsor for so many years. Even though we have had an established event for the past 10 years, we never know how the following year will be, and if the sponsorship will be there... For many years we have been benefiting from government incentive laws that allow corporations to invest in art and culture, but like ANIMA MUNDI, there are many other art and cultural events going on in the country, which make the competition for funding very fierce. We have survived for long, and I say this because we have had just enough funding to continue, and the willingness to sacrifice part of our career as artists to get the festival on the streets. People that come to ANIMA MUNDI think we are rich, well, the event is rich, but it is all invested in it… We do not have volunteers, we cannot afford that, it's too risky, we run a mega event, everything has to be fine tuned, we need professionals, we need commitment and people working full time, sometimes entire days and nights, so we decide to pay for that. We would love to have more support and partnership from Animation Studios, the Film Industry, Airline Companies and any interested and related corporations. We know that we have a precious event in our hands, it has been growing slowly and carefully, it has been successful since the first edition, and along with all this, we are very creative and open minded when forming alliances that will bring us more funding, will allow us to expand our ideas and help us to fulfill the festival's increasing goals. " |
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Thomas:
"Thank you for the interview; I wish ANIMA MUNDI 2002 will again be a big success, I wish you many funny and many innovative films and a satisfied audience getting new perspectives!" |
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