Ibermedia Boosts Animation Support
CREDIT: QUIRINO AWARDS
BARCELONA— Ibermedia, the multi-million dollar pan-regional fund which is a financial lifeline for many for films in Latin America, is finally getting serious about animation. As announced at Spain’s Málaga Film Festival, a showcase for Spanish-language cinema, the Ibero-American fund has allotted $200,000 for animation work development, as $30,000 per work.
Amounts may look small: There are sufficient, however, for animators in much of Latin America a significant amount of time and cost coverage to develop project.
The new incentives follow on a work session at the 1st Quirino Awards for Ibero-American animation, won by Mexico’s “Ana and Bruno” (pictured), which took place in April on the Canary Island of Tenerife. Attended by industry body reps, the session debated a package of possible incentives for the region’s animation industry which is beginning to build, sometimes energetically, though from a low-base, especially in Spain, Mexico, Brazil and Colombia.
Presented to Caci, the umbrella org of state-sector Ibero-America film and TV agencies, the new measures were unveiled at Spain’s Malaga Festival. Ibermedia has financed “barely a dozen” animated movies among the 800 features receiving aid over the last 20 years, Ibermedia head Elena Vilardell told Variety.
Ibermedia did have development support systems for animation. But the caps were low, just $15,000 per work, and technical requirements made them hard to access.
“This is a great news, fruit of a many-months work. It will undoubtedly deliver a boost to Ibero-American animation targeting global market. Recent success, mainly in family films, make us to be optimistic,” said Carlos Biern, president of the Spanish Federation of Animation Producers (Diboos).
Of recent titles, Spain’s “Tad, The Lost Explorer” has hit about $50 million in global box office, half made outside Spain, which Mexico’s “Un gallo con muchos huevos” is the seventh highest-grossing foreign-language movie in the U.S. in the last five years earning $9.1 million Stateside.
“Animation projects require far costlier development, give the singularity of animation,” José Iñesta, director of Mexico’s Pixelatl Animation Fest, pointed out.
Ibermedia’s bigger animation development support kicks in from first quarter next year.
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