São Paulo – Lebanese and Egyptian productions will be featured in Anima Mundi, a Brazilian international animation festival due this month in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. The event will include Lebanese films for the first time. The festival will take place from August 2 to 11 in Rio and from August 14 to 18 in São Paulo.
The advertising films The Car Loan and The Home Loan were made by agency Leo Burnett, in Beirut, in partnership with Italy’s Dadomani Studio. The films are competing in the Portfolio category, which includes films commissioned for advertising, institutional videos, videogames, music videos, or special effects sequences for feature films.
The two ads, created for Bank Audi, are fun depictions of the problems faced by people who need to finance a car and an apartment, in order to promote the advantages offered by the bank. The films are spoken in Arabic and will include Portuguese subtitles.
The short film Bitingan (Eggplant, in Arabic) will feature in the category Animação em Curso (Animation in course), for work produced by animation students from professional training schools, workshops, or universities.
Created by Ahmad Abdelhammed as a graduate project for the High Cinema Institute, in Cairo, Bitingan portrays how the actions of one character influence what happens to others. The Animação em Curso category is not competitive.
In its 21st edition, Anima Mundi will feature 510 works from 53 countries, among them Germany, Belgium, Spain, Canada, France, Netherlands, Poland, Switzerland, Japan, Estonia, United States, South Korea and India, among others.
In addition to film screenings, the festival will also include meetings between the audience and leading names of animation worldwide. Canadian animation film companies Wendy Tilby and Amanda Forbis, which were nominated for an Academy Award in 2012 for the short film ‘Wild Life’, are among the guests for this year’s event. Another guest is Brazil’s Ennio Torresan, who will discuss his work at DreamWorks’ studios, where he was involved in creating ‘Madagascar’ and ‘Kung Fu Panda.’
Service
Anima Mundi
Rio de Janeiro
August 2 to 11
Places: Cinema Odeon BR, Fundição Progresso, Oi Futuro Flamengo and Oi Futuro Ipanema
São Paulo
August 14 to 18
Places: Espaço Itaú de Cinema and Cine Olido
Program available at www.animamundi.com.br
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum