The new year is off to a strong start for Animayo, with the news that the Gran Canaria event is the first dedicated animation fest in Spain to be declared a Qualifying Festival for the Academy Awards by AMPAS. Starting with this year’s 13th edition in May, the Grand Jury Prize winner will be eligible for consideration i the Best Animated Short Film Oscar.
Animayo was already the first toon contest to be made a qualifying festival for the Goya Awards short film prize. Presented by the Academia de las Artes y las Ciencias Cinematográficas de España, the Goya Awards is the Spanish equivalent of the Oscars and is itself an Academy Award qualifying event.
The festival has built a reputation for selecting novel, innovative and high quality animated short films in its 13 year history. The last several editions have been won by internationally acclaimed works including Esther Wouda & Mathieu Avray’s Cosmos Laundromat (2017), Konstantin Bronzit’s We Can’t Live without Cosmos (2016), Daisy Jacobs & Jennifer Majka’s The Bigger Picture (2015), ESMA graduate film Beyond the Lines (2014), and Daniel Sousa’s Feral (2013).
Animayo receives some 2,000 submissions each year, and the rigorously selected competition films are reviewed by an international jury of industry pros to determine the Grand Jury Prize and other category winners. Last year’s jury included Silvia Pompei (FOX), Olga Szablewicks-Pisuk (Platige Image), Laura Bethencourt (Ilion Animation Studios), Belli Ramírez (Mr Cohl), Jaroslava Hynstova (Zlin Festival), Gloria Scola (Journalist), Carolina Jiménez (Scanline, MPC), and Animation Magazine’s own publisher and World Animation & VFX Summit founder Jean Thoren.
Ahead of the official summit, conference and festival, Animayo will hold its first event of the year at CaixaForum Barcelona (Feb. 16-17), featuring dedicated spotlights on women in animation, VFX and video games in line with the 2017 event. More information at www.animayo.com.
