Spanish animation

Spanish animation refers to animation made in Spain.

Short films

Silent era

Segundo de Chomón is considered the pioneer of Spanish animation, with the stop-motion shorts he made in France for Pathé starting with La maison hantée (1907). El toro fenómeno (Fernando Marco, 1917), which was lost, is considered the first Spanish animated film. It was immediately followed by other shorts, including political satires.^[1] Joaquín Xaudaró is the best known animator from the interwar period.

Feature films

Classic era

Spain's first animated feature, Garbancito of La Mancha (1945), was the first European cel-animated and non-American color one, using Dufaycolor.^[2] It was a fairy tail where an orphan child loosely based in Don Quixote has to save his friends from a giant with the help of his fairy godmother and goat. Its production company, Balet y Blay, made two more features: Happy Vacations (1948) and The Dreams of Tay-Pi (1952).

Through the 1950 new companies were created. Estudios Moro and Estudios Vara produced the main features in subsequent stages of the Francoist era: The Wizard of Dreams (1966) and The Wardrobe of Time (1971). Cruz Delgado, a Moro animator, created his own studio and directed Magical Adventure (1973), while Manuel García Ferré, who had moved to Argentina, created there features such as The Adventures of Hijitus (1973) and Trapito (1975).

At the later stages of this period underground animation took shape, including the first abstract direct cameraless feature ever, José Antonio Sistiaga's Ere erera baleibu icik subua aruaren (1970), and during the transition to democracy the first Spanish feature restricted for adults was released: Stories of Love and Massacre (1979).

Modern era

In the 1980s the feature production was diversified under the new autonomous system and films based in the local traditions were produced, such as The Magic Pumpkin (Juan Bautista Berasategi, 1985) in Euskadi and Despertaferro (Jordi Amorós, 1990) in Catalonia. The Town Musicians of Bremen (Cruz Delgado, 1988), which spun a popular series, Los Trotamúsicos (1989), was the first animation film prized at the Goya Awards.^[3]

Feature production didn't make an impact for most of the 1990s, and only one Goya award was granted in the first half of the decade, for The Return of the North Wind (Maite Ruiz de Austri, 1993). It was however a period of experimentation: Megasónicos (1997) was the first European CGI animation feature,^[4] and A Child's Play (Pablo Lloréns, 1999) was the first Spanish stop-motion feature.

Production rose in the following years, and in 2000 four films competed for the Goya Award for the first time. The Living Forest (2001) was the first widely-distributed CGI feature, but most films were made in traditional animation for the first half of the decade. While most of them were influenced by American animation, Gisaku (Baltasar Pedrosa, 2005) was branded as the first Spanish anime feature^[5] and released at nearly the same time in Japan and Spain.

Contemporary era

From the second half of the 2000s CGI has been the dominating trend in family features. Many of them were co-productions with other countries, such as Great Britain in Kandor Graphics' The Missing Lynx (2008) and Justin and the Knights of Valour (2013). The most ambitious of these co-productions was Planet 51 (2009), with a $70 million budget. At the same time, Spanish animation co-produced foreign films such as Michel Ocelot's Azur and Asmar (2006).

Some of the most ambitious projects in more recent years were produced just in Spain with the backing of television networks, such as Mediaset in Lightbox Entertainment's Tad, the Lost Explorer (2012) and Capture the Flag (2015). Meanwhile live-action directors Juan José Campanella and Javier Fesser entered the CGI animation field with Underdogs (2013) and Mortadelo and Filemon: Mission Implausible (2014) respectively.

Traditional animation is still used in adult projects. Chico and Rita (Fernando Trueba, 2010) won the European Award and was nominated for the Academy Award, while Wrinkles (Ignacio Ferreras, 2011) was nominated for the European Award and the Annie Award. Lastly, stop-motion has been used for horror features such as Going Nuts (Juanjo Ramírez, 2007) and O apóstolo (Fernando Cortizo, 2012).

List of productions

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										Prized	Nomin.
Title	Release	R. time	Technique	Main animation studio	Director	Co-producers	Rating	Budget	Box office	Awards
										Goya	Euro	Oscar	Annie
Garbancito of La Mancha	1945-11-23	98 min.	Hand-drawn	Balet y Blay	J.M. Blay, A. Moreno			P3.1 million	P3 million
Happy Holidays	1948-12-27	73 min.	Hand-drawn	Balet y Blay	J.M. Blay, A. Moreno			P3 million	P1.3 million
Once Upon a Time...	1950	75 min.	Hand-drawn	Estela	Alexandre Cirici			P4 million
The Dreams of Tay-Pi	1952-12-22		Hand-drawn	Balet y Blay	J.M. Blay, F. Winterstein
The Wizard of Dreams	1966-12-16	70 min.	Hand-drawn	Moro	Fernando Macián
Mortadelo y Filemon Festival	1969	80 min.	Hand-drawn	Vara	Rafael Vara				P2.2 million
Mortadelo y Filemon Second Festival	1970	85 min.	Hand-drawn	Vara	Rafael Vara				P2.5 million
Ere erera baleibu icik subua aruaren	1970	75 min.	Drawn-on-film		José Antonio Sistiaga
The Wardrobe of Time	1971	78 min.	Hand-drawn	Vara	Rafael Vara				P40 million
Magical Adventure	1973-09-06	69 min.	Hand-drawn	Cruz Delgado	Cruz Delgado
The Attic of Fantasy	1978	75 min.	Hand-drawn	Cruz Delgado	Cruz Delgado
Stories of Love and Massacre	1979-04-16	88 min.	Hand-drawn	Equip	Jordi Amorós
Gulliver's Travels	1983-12-17	82 min.	Hand-drawn	Cruz Delgado	Cruz Delgado			P100 million
Katy the Caterpillar	1985-07-15	69 min.	Hand-drawn	Moro	J.L. Moro, S. Moro			P80 million
The Little Vagabond	1985-07-29	96 min.	Hand-drawn		Manuel Rodjara
The Magic Pumpkin	1985	90 min.	Hand-drawn		Juanba Berasategi
Town Musicians of Bremen	1989-06-26	86 min.	Hand-drawn	Cruz Delgado	Cruz Delgado				P20 million
Peraustrinia 2004	1990-04-06	75 min.	Hand-drawn	Marimón	Ángel García
Despertaferro	1990-12-05	75 min.	Hand-drawn	Equip	Jordi Amorós
The Legend of the North Wind	1992	69 min.	Hand-drawn	Eskuz	J. Berasategi, M. Ruiz de Austri, C. Varela			P150 million
The Return of the North Wind	1993	72 min.	Hand-drawn	Eskuz	Maite Ruiz de Austri
Megasónicos	1997-12-19	85 min.	Computer	Baleuko	J. González, J. Martínez
Ahmed, the Prince of Alhambra	1998-06	68 min.	Hand-drawn	Lotura	Juanba Berasategi
¡Qué vecinos tan animales!	1998-09-04	69 min.	Hand-drawn	Extra	Maite Ruiz de Austri
Goomer	1999-07-09	75 min.	Hand-drawn	Merlín	J.L. Feito, C. Varela
A Children's Game	1999-10	74 min.	Stop-motion	Potens	Pablo Llorens			P48 million
The Thief of Dreams	1999-12-15	70 min.	Computer	Dibulitoon	Ángel Alonso			P130 million
The Island of the Crab	2000-10-02	68 min.	Hand-drawn	Irusoin	T. Basterretxea, J. Muñoz			P130 million
Marco Antonio: Hong Kong Rescue	2000-12-01	78 min.	Hand-drawn	Merlín	M.J. García, C. Varela
The Living Forest	2001-08-03	82 min.	Computer	Dygra	Á. de a Cruz, M. Gómez			P550 million
10 + 2: The Great Secret	2001-08-17	85 min.	Hand-drawn	Acció	Miquel Pujol
A Dog Called Pain	2001-11-16	90 min.	Hand-drawn		Luis Eduardo Aute
The Legend of the Unicorn	2001-12-21	70 min.	Hand-drawn	Extra	Maite Ruiz de Austri			P200 million
The King of the Farm	2002-06-21	95 min.	h.-d. / comp. / live-action	Bainet	G. Muro, C. Zabala
The Warriors of the Apocalypse	2002-08-14	80 min.	computer	Ovidio DVD	Jesús M. Montané
Time Gate	2002-11-29	80 min.	Hand-drawn	Animatoons	Pedro E. Delgado
Dragon Hill	2002-12-20	80 min.	Hand-drawn	Milímetros	Ángel Izquierdo			€3 million
Anjé, the Pyrenaic Legend	2002	67 min.	Computer	Baleuko	Juanjo Elordi
El embrujo del Sur	2003-07-04	89 min.	Hand-drawn	Lotura	Juanba Berasategi			€1.2 million
Betizu Among the Stars	2003-10-31	71 min.	Computer	Baleuko	Egoitz Rodríguez
El Cid: The Legend	2003-12-19	90 min.	Hand-drawn	Filmax	Raúl del Pozo			€8 million
The Three Wise Men	2003-12-19	76 min.	Hand-drawn	Animagic	Antonio Navarro			€7.2 million
Pinocchio 3000	2004-02-09	79 min.	Computer	CinéGroupe	Daniel Robichaud			$12 million	$15 million
The Balunis in the Adventure in the End of the World	2004-03-19	88 min.	Computer	Baleuko	Juanjo Elordi
Glup, una aventura sin desperdicio	2004-04-02	73 min.	Hand-drawn	Dibulitoon	A. Arregi, I. Berasategui			€1.2 million

Television animation

Classic era

Animation first appeared at the Spanish television in commercials and spots. The most famous one was José Luis Moro's The Telerín Family (1964), which was used to tell children it was time to go to bed. Its characters went on to star in the 1966 The Wizard of Dreams feature.

In 1968 former Estudios Moro animator Cruz Delgado created for TVE the first Spanish animated series, Microbio.^[6] One year before emigré animator Manuel García Ferré had created in Argentina the Hijitus series.

Modern era

Cruz Delgado's Don Quixote of La Mancha (1979–81) was the first large success in Spanish TV animation, which boosted in the following years. Co-productions were set, with Nippon Animation creating the animation for BRB Internacional's Ruy, the Little Cid (1979), Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds (1981) and Around the World with Willy Fog (1984), while The World of David the Gnome (1985) was an international success.

References

1. El Español
2. Museu del Cinema
3. Goya Awards, via Youtube
4. PC World
5. Diario ABC
6. RTVE