Festival Diary: Sleepless In Lisbon At Portugal’s Monstra

Lisbon, the cultural beating heart of Portugal, once again hosted the Monstra International Animation Festival this year. The event, which wrapped up on Sunday, marked the 25th edition of what has become one of the major European animation festivals over the past decade, showcasing more than 490 films over the span of ten days.

Industry Focus and First Impressions

Beyond audience-driven screenings, Monstra also offered unique networking opportunities for producers from beyond Portugal. The industry section is one of the festival’s epicenters, and one I had the pleasure of discovering for Cartoon Brew this year.

A 72-hour trip is definitely too short to grasp everything Monstra has to offer. But between pro meetings, the Portuguese competition, engaging encounters, and a singular experience at the crossroads of jazz and animation, this stay left me with exactly the right impression: a desperate need to return, eat another pastel de nata, and enjoy more of what Monstra has to offer.

Cutting-Edge Portuguese Studios and International Collaboration

Jumping from my 6 a.m. flight straight into the first PRO meetings, I began my Monstra journey with a unique gathering of Baltic, Iberian, and Latin American countries, featuring no fewer than 21 back-to-back studio presentations. These were followed by presentations from Portuguese, European, and Baltic funding institutions. The sessions provided valuable information for both veteran and emerging producers, reinforcing Portugal’s growing position as a key player in the European animation industry.

From boutique production companies to fully fledged animation studios, the presentations highlighted the close connections Portuguese studios have already built with Spain, the rest of Europe, and beyond, while also opening new paths for potential Latvian, Estonian, and South American co-productions.

Studio Highlights: From Emerging to Established

Founded in 2022 and among the youngest companies on the panel, Fly Moustache impressed with its already packed slate of 2D TV series and specials, including Planet Agents (co-produced with Greek studio Funny Tales), Vila Marela (a Peruvian-Brazilian-Portuguese co-production), and the TV special Dark Woods, based on the award-winning comic by Estrela Lourenço.

At the other end of the spectrum, the 18-year-old, renowned studio Sardinha em Lata (which recently won a Goya for its collaboration on Alberto Vázquez’s Decorado) offered a glimpse into its pipeline before taking colleagues and me on an improvised studio tour. In Lisbon, amid tasty restaurants and hip cafés, it’s easy to miss the entrance to this multimedia studio, which houses several stop-motion sets, 2D workstations, and a wealth of creative treasures.

There, I discovered the large puppet collection used for My Grandfather’s Demons, Sardinha em Lata’s first feature film (2022), as well as a state-of-the-art virtual production stop-motion setup the team is testing for its new series Pido Pausa, currently in development. By connecting backgrounds crafted in Unreal Engine and projecting them onto a screen used as the set backdrop, the system synchronizes camera and background movement frame by frame, effectively replacing green screen with in-camera backgrounds.

As of today, Sardinha em Lata has three features, two series, and several shorts in production, with more in development.

Portuguese Pitching and Competition Highlights

During Friday’s four-hour Portuguese pitching session, Sardinha em Lata, along with a dozen other studios, revealed even more projects from the coastal country. Unfortunately, as the event was conducted entirely in Portuguese, I wasn’t able to follow everything. Still, producers and studios like BAP (whose short Dog Alone won the Portuguese competition, more on that below), Animanostra, Spamflix, and CUP Filmes clearly have a lot up their animated sleeves.

Despite being sleep-deprived, two late-night screenings convinced me to head to the prestigious Cinema São Jorge for another round of Portuguese animation. Opened in May 1946, the nearly 80-year-old venue boasts an impressive 830-seat auditorium, where nine films competed on Friday evening for this year’s Vasco Granja Portuguese Competition Award.

After 135 minutes of animation in a packed theater, marked by enthusiastic applause from animators supporting their studios, and even some fierce booing directed at João Pedro Oliveira’s AI-crafted short Machinarium, Marta Reis Andrade’s BAP-produced Dog Alone received a well-deserved award from the international jury.

Other highlights of the evening included Alice Eça Guimarães’ Because Today Is Saturday, a powerful look at the mental load still borne by mothers, and Alexandre Sousa’s eerie Amarelo Banana, which questions what communities can offer, or take, from those who engage too deeply with them.

Experimental Programming: Jazz and Animation

Completing my Monstra trip was a peculiar jazz-animation experience: the JAZZANIM late-night screening held on Thursday evening. After nearly 20 hours without sleep, discovering 13 experimental shorts accompanied live by local student vocalists and contemporary/experimental jazz musicians (also students) was a one-of-a-kind, hypnotic experience.

This combination, rooted in the Monstra co-founders’ long-standing love for mixed-media experimentation dating back more than 20 years, proved mesmerizing.

Looking Ahead: Missed Talks and Emerging Projects

In truth, after this too-short stay at Monstra, I’m left wanting more animation, more pastéis, and more of everything Lisbon and Portugal have to offer.

Sadly, I also missed what sounded like a fascinating talk by Cartoon Brew founder Amid Amidi, who revisited his passion for Cartoon Modern.

But what intrigues me most is Virgin Fandango, a new short by animation veteran and NFB producer Marcy Page and composer Normand Roger, which the duo teased at Monstra this year. A Portuguese-Canadian co-production, the 11-minute film is made using 12,000 animated azulejos (painted tiles) and features a rebellious Mary raising her voice to celebrate women throughout history in the struggle for equality.

Based on what was shown at Monstra, this is undoubtedly shaping up to be one of the most exciting animated shorts of the year.