Winners Of First-Ever Quirino Awards Will Be Announced Tonight – Here’s A Preview Of The Nominees

By Amid Amidi | 04/07/2018 2:09 pm | Be the First to Comment!

Following two packed days of presentations, meetings, networking sessions, and parties, the inaugural Quirino Awards culminate tonight with the main attraction: the Quirino Awards show.

The Quirinos represent 23 Ibero-American countries in both Latin America and Europe, and key industry figures from most of those countries have been in attendance throughout this week’s event. A total of 24 productions from nine Ibero-American countries are in contention for the Quirino’s nine awards. The nominees were chosen from a total of 273 submissions.

If there’s one takeaway from the past few days, it’s that the Ibero-American animation world is expanding at an unprecedented pace. The region’s animation industries are more connected than ever before, and events like the Quirinos are helping make those connections even stronger. Considering that many of the countries are still in the early stages of developing their animation industries, the biggest growth is yet to come. Expect this expanded output to be represented by the Quirino Awards itself, as they receive more entries in future years, and launch new award categories to fully represent the varied output of the region.

But first things first – the Quirino Awards will be handed out this evening at the Auditorio Adán Martín on the Spanish island of Tenerife in the Canaries. Here’s a look at the nominees in three of the key Quirino categories:

Quirino Awards – Best Feature Film Nominees

Three of the features are cg, including the Spanish feature Tad, the Lost Explorer and the Secret of King Midas, which leads the Quirino Awards, with a total of three nominations. Its other nominations are for animation design and sound design/original music. Tad was the fifth-highest grossing release in Spain last year, outgrossing American releases like Coco, The Fate of the Furious, and Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle; and it also won Spain’s Goya Award for best animated feature. Another film, Mexico’s Ana and Bruno, is directed by the Oscar-nominated Carlos Carrera, who is best known for his live-action features, though he has also created animation throughout his career. Carrera’s project was the closing night film at the Morelia International Film Festival last fall and will open theatrically in Mexico this August. The sole 2d entry, Lila’s Book, is Colombia’s 12 feature film, but the country’s first to be directed by a woman.

Quirino Awards – Best Series Nominees

On the series side, the nominated projects use a mix of techniques from cg (Spain’s long-running Pocoyo series), stop motion (Argentina’s The Tiniest Man in the World), and hand-drawn (Old Folks Tales originating out of Colombia). The most stylistically ambitious of the batch might be Paper Port from Chile’s Zumbastico Studios, which uses an innovative mix of three-dimensional paper cut-out stop-motion with digital 2d.

Quirino Awards – Best Short Film Nominees

The shorts also reflect stylistic diveristy, with Ecuador-led Afterwork made in cg (with hand-drawn inserts), Mexico’s Cerulia produced in stop-motion, and Spain’s Decorado made with hand-drawn animation. All three films have experienced success on the festival circuit, with Decorado winning the Goya Award for best Spanish short in 2017. Cerulia, which has a highly distinctive look, is also nominated for a second Quirino for best animation design.