AnimaKom is the perfect way to end the animation festival year...
Promoting Women and Basque Animation
AnimaKom is the perfect way to end the animation festival year. Begun in 2017 by writer/producer/director Pedro Rivero, the festival has grown from just a small group of friends to include more and more guests each year. Pedro’s main aims at the festival are to promote women animators and Basque animation by presenting special screenings.
Along with the International and Student Competitions, there are the Laboral Kutxa Award for the best Basque film, Best Female Director Award, and as befits a festival directed by an award-winning scriptwriter, there is a scriptwriting award. Pedro has been awarded two Goya Awards (Birdboy, 2012 and Birdboy, The Forgotten Children, 2017), along with being the co-writer of the live action movie The Platform (2019), one of the most watched films in the history of Netflix.
I had the great honor of serving on the International Competition Jury this year. Along with Slovenian animator Spela Cadez and Austrian festival director of Under the Radar Animation Festival Holger Lang, I watched twenty-one films. For the AnimaKom Grand Prix, we unanimously selected The Car That Came Back from The Sea by Jadwiga Kowalska. The Polish/Swiss director used 2D and 3D animation along with Rotoscope to create his delightful film.
In 1981, a group of young Polish people had a dream – to have a car and go to the Baltic Sea. They were not into politics even though the shelves in shops were empty, it was impossible to get a passport, and Lech Walesa was leading demonstrations in the streets. Using comic book style artwork, the film is the story of people trying to evade martial law. In true road movie style, with a great deal of humor, this 10½ minute film delivers a delightful message about Poles in the Communist Era finding their freedom in a car that is falling apart as Communism is also beginning to fall apart in their country.
Each jury members was allowed to give a Special Mention. My award went to an animated documentary that was painful and heart-wrenching to watch. In I Died in Irpin, Director Anastasia Falileieva recounts her memories of the early days of the Russian invasion of Ukraine with brutal honesty.
On the morning of 24 February 2022, Anastasia and her fiancé decide to leave their home in the besieged city of Kyiv, the capitol of the Ukraine, and drive to his parents’ home in Irpin, where they felt that they would be safer. She has said, “It is hard for me to recall the chronology of those days. My mind blocks and undervalues all of the memories, erases them, but the only thing that I know for sure is that every day, everything got worse.”
The couple was in Irpin for ten days, sleeping in the basement of his parents’ home, totally isolated and hiding from the bombings. Anastasia wanted to get out of Irpin, but her boyfriend’s parents insisted on staying. The family finally managed to escape in the last green corridor with an evacuation convoy just hours before Russian troops finally entered the city.
The parents were still having trouble dealing with the reality of what was happening. The father didn’t pack anything practical to take with him. He just wanted to take his collection of antique radios. The house was completely destroyed. About the horrible experience, Anastasia says, “Time passed, but the feeling that I died in Irpin has never left me since then”. I believe that I Died in Irpin conveys the feelings of displaced people, not just in the Ukraine but all over the world. Watching the film is a powerful, emotional experience.
The Laboral Kutxa Award for the Best Basque Film went to Izibene Onederra for Etorriko DA (Eta Zure Begiak Izango Ditu). That translates to When It Comes (It Will Have Your Eyes). The gripping story is about a small rural community that is in a state of collapse due to an environmental crisis. As a massive fog becomes increasingly dense, the story unfolds as seen through the eyes of an ordinary working man. As the working-class residents struggle to survive without any way to leave, the privileged residents lead a hedonistic life of carpe diem. Some well-hidden clues near the end of the 13-minute film hint at a small margin of hope for the residents, but you have to watch carefully for them in the cautionary tale that is far to timely right now.
Each year, a person or organization is honored with the AnimaKom Award. It denotes outstanding achievement in the field of animation. The 2024 winner was BAP Studio. Located in Porto, Portugal, BAP was created in 2011 as the animation arm of Studio BANDO à Parte. In 2018, it became an autonomous collective. Formed by a group of directors, animators, and scriptwriters who work on each other’s projects, BAP films are known for their high quality and artistic merit. Over the years, the studio has garnered numerous awards at animation festivals worldwide.
The AnimaKom award is especially appropriate in 2024 because, for the first time, the studio has had a film selected as one of the final group of fifteen films in the running for the Short Animation Oscar. The honor went to Percebes, directed by Laura Gonçalves and Alexandre Ramires.
The 11½ minute film follows the complete life cycle of a unique shellfish called the Goose Barnacle, a popular delicacy in Portugal and Spain. With the sea and urban Algarve as its setting, we follow the crustation from its formation to its appearance on a dinner table.
The beautiful 2D with digital and watercolor painted film also brings the Algarve, Portugal’s southernmost region, to life. Until the 1960s, the area was primarily known for its fishing villages perched on low cliffs overlooking sandy coves. Once the pristine beaches were discovered by tourists, the area became full of expensive villas, hotels, bars, and restaurants to cater to the tourists.
Percebes evokes the feeling of the people who live in this lovely location and what life is like in the land caught between tourists and the local people who have lived by the sea and fed their families by fishing for centuries.
Laura Gonçalves and two other members of the BAP collective, Ines Munhoz and Marta Reis Andrade, were in Bilboa to accept the AnimaKom Award. Each year it is my great pleasure to present the award to the winners. I was thrilled to be able to present the award to BAP Studio because I am a great fan of their work. There was also a screening of six films from BAP.
Macedonian director and animator Krste Gopodinovski gave a workshop at the Fashion, Art, and Design School in Bilbao where the participants created organic time-lapse stop motion. They used organic materials that decay over time, such as potatoes. This gives the sculptures the ability to age naturally while you are animating them.
The Animakom screenings take place in Bilborock, a renovated 17th-century church named the Church of the Merced. It is now home to concerts, cinemas, theatrical events, and a host of other artistic activities. Along with its multipurpose main room with a stage, screen, and projection equipment, there are six rehearsal spaces and a podcast room on the upper floor.
Many festivals have wonderful hospitality, but no one does it quite like Pedro. The guests gather together every day for a sit-down meal at Txapola Taberna, a lovely restaurant that serves delicious traditional Basque food, and at Bar Luciano Berri for tapas. My favorite place is Taberna Plaza Nueva, where owner Jon de Miguel Izarzugaza (Jontxu) welcomes us with open arms and serves us delicious tapas and drinks. His hot stuffed crab is a thing of beauty, indeed. The entire time I am at AnimaKom, I eat a lot, drink a lot, and laugh a lot.
I can’t thank Pedro enough for making Nik and me part of the AnimaKom family. A very big thank you goes to Javier Ramos Escapa. who makes sure that we are always where we are supposed to be because herding animators is like herding cats. Javi does it all with a smile and is always there if we need him. The other invaluable member of the AnimaKom team is Isa Molinos. I am already looking forward to AnimaKom 2025.
You can learn more about the festival at animakom.com
2024 WINNING FILMS
Grand Prix International Competition
The Car That Came Back from the Sea
Jury’s Special Prize International Competition
Joko
Jury’s Special Mention International Competition
I Died in Irpin
The Mole
Butterfly
Grand Prix Students Competition
Tokyo Birds
Jury’s Special Prize Students Competition
Cocoon
Jury’s Special Mention Students Competition
Weeds
Laboral Kutxa Award
Etorriko da (eta zure begiak izango ditu)
Jury’s Special Mention Laboral Kutxa Award
Plazer bat
Audience Award
Chronicity
Hurikán
Best Animated Music Video
Trash Club
Best Female Director
Jay’s Girl
Stuffed
Best Script
Windows from the South
Innovation Award
Pubert Jimbob
