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The biggest cu ltura l sponsor in Brazil, Petrobras also sponsors cultural events of global impact. Such is the case of the Anima Mundi festival, one of the three biggest events in the sector, responsible for popularizing and encouraging animation cinema by means of forums, meetings, talks, workshops, and film showings which constitute a panorama of global production. The festival has been sponsored by Petrobras for 12 years, and, as expected, the partnership has been continued in 2009, in the 17th edition of the event, held July 10-26, in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.

“Anima Mundi was created in 1993 by the Brazilian animators Aida Queiroz, Cesar Coelho, Lea Zagury, and Marcos Magalhães. Petrobras’ sponsorship started in 1997, when it was still a small event held in Rio de Janeiro, at the Bank of Brazil’s Cultural Center. Since then, the festival has helped to increase the number of animators in Brazil, has increased the national animation production, has heated up the market, has grown, started being held also in São Paulo, and has promoted the Petrobras brand name, constantly increasing its value,” explains Romildo Nascimento, Petrobras’ festival sponsorship coordinator.

Anima Mundi 2009 attracted an audience of about 100,000 people, repeating the success of prior years. It comprised 401 movies from 40 countries, exhibited in competitive showings of full and short-length features, children’s cartoons, and institutional films, or non-competitive showings of films created by animation school students, children from 7 to 14, or considered by specialists to be not yet ready for the competitive category but sufficiently interesting to be exhibited because of a good story line or good technical quality.

Anima Mundi Archives
Scene from The Good Soldier Shweik
Anima Mundi Archives
Scene from Sita Sings the Blues

Among the total of nine full-length movies presented, the amusing Immigrants, by the Hungarian Gabor Csupo and produced by the same studio responsible for the first seasons of The Simpsons and Rugrats, greatly pleased the audience by showing the “tight spots” experienced by immigrants in the USA. The Good Soldier Shweik, by Roberto Crombie, with the theme of the First World War and Zhang Ga!, by Sun Lijun, about the Second World War, were also hits. Indian mythology was portrayed in Sita Sings the Blues, by the American Nina Paley. The ironic $9.99, by the Israeli Tália Rosenthal, was also a success, showing, in slow motion, the story of a man who plans to spend less than ten dollars to understand the meaning of life. For children, the featurelength Mia et le Migon, by Jacques Rémy, which shows the adventures of a group of friends, was the highlight of the program.

Among the shorts, Lost and Found, by the Aka Studio, about the friendship between a boy and a penguin, touched the young audience. Her Morning Elegance, by Yuval & Merav Nathan, surprised viewers by the delicacy of the animation in which the character who awakes interacts with the sheets and pillows. Wallace and Gromit: a Matter of Loaf and Death, by Nick Park, author of Wallace and Gromit: the Curse of the Were-Rabbit, was another hit applauded by fans of the animator and by those having their first contact with his work in Anima Mundi 2009.

Thanks to the festival, there is a demand, a public and a market in Brazil for animation

Anima Mundi Archives
Scene from Mia et le Migon

The festival included the already traditional workshops, which entertained children and adults, such as putty, sand, drawing, and pixilation, an old technique in which the actors’ movements are photographed frame by frame, creating an animated sequence assembled in a film. To direct the 2009 workshop entitled Making Your Film, Anima Mundi brought the American Mike Cachuela, one of the storyboard artists in films such as Ratatouille, The Incredibles, Toy Story, Madagascar 2, and Coraline. In the workshop Cachuela used dolls from the full length film Coraline and presented a never-beforeseen making of the film.

Anima Mundi Archives
Scene from Lost and Found

Anima Mundi also invited special guests who spoke about their work. In commemoration of the Year of France in Brazil, the master of children’s animated cartoons, Michel Ocelot, author of Azur and Asmar and Kirikou and the Sorceress, took part in the production of the short films exhibited and commented on at the event. The Estonian animator, Pritt Parn, renowned for his surrealist style and his acid humor, showed why his country has become a production center of animated films. The North American animator and researcher Amid Amidi, founder of the animation blog www. cartoonmodern.blogsome.com, one of the most complete and accessed blogs on the subject in the world, spoke about his book, Cartoon Modern: Style and Design in Fifties’ Animation, a work that documents the United Productions of America studios production in the fifties and which became a global cartoon benchmark.

The festival also paid posthumous homage to Anelio Latini, author of the first Brazilian featurelength animated movie, Sinfonia Amazonica, made in 1952. The homage included a festive session, presented by Anelio’s niece, Marcia Latini, and a never-before-seen short film made by Anelio and his brother Mario Latini when Anelio was only 13 years old, entitled Lulu’s Bad Luck.

Petrobras sees culture as a basic right of each citizen

Finally, the 2009 festival commemorated four years of Anima Forum, a meeting place for renowned animators from around the world. The Forum brought together, in Rio de Janeiro, 17 speakers and about 200 animation professionals to debate the production of animation for TV and for the Brazilian animation market, among other themes. Once again, the objective was achieved.

In yet another edition of Anima Mundi, the satisfaction was great. “There is a demand, an audience, and a consolidated market in Brazil for animation, because the language is comprehensive and brings an immediate return. For those who produce animation this is fundamental. And Anima Mundi was successful in creating this audience and this market without losing sight of the fact that it is the short films that are the driving force of the global animated cinema, the great laboratory which stimulates the development of creativity in the animation industry, since the non-commercial format allows for limitless creation. In this effort of more than a decade, Petrobras’ sponsorship has made possible the repeated holding of the festival and the generation of the results we see today,” observes Aida Queiroz.

In this scenario, Petrobras, regarding culture as a basic right of every citizen, through its sponsorship of the Anima Mundi festival, has achieved its objective. It has collaborated in the circulation and the enjoyment of animated films, has stimulated the talent of animators, some of whom were discovered at the festival, and has provided the first contact with animation for a large audience of viewers who have become fans of the art for life. The Petrobras team is unanimous in saying: “The pleasure was all ours.”