Animayo Gran Canaria 2019

I’ve never been to Animayo before, so this year I decided to give it a try. The pass for the whole festival costs €75 for general public and €50 for students, teachers and unemployed, while individual masterclasses are €15 per session (free for pass holders) and workshops €20 (50% discount for pass holders) — still, a lot of money. However, there were enough free activities to keep anyone occupied. I, for once, spent four evenings in a row watching animation for free.

Sección Oficial Internacional a Concurso I

I went to see the first (of four) sessions of the official animated short competition in Centro Cultural CICCA. As the inauguration of the festival was taking place in the same auditorium immediately before, the screening started half an hour later than scheduled. Luckily, there was no shortage (pun intended) of Tirma chocolate wafers (also free) piled at the reception to sustain the animation aficionados, myself included.

(The other three sessions took place at Teatro Guiniguada where, I expect, everything was on time. At least this was the case with three feature films described below.)

The programme included nine short films that evening. We were given a ballot to vote for the Audience Award. Difficult choice! I liked Grandma’s Pie and Bloeistraat 11 very much, but my absolute favourite was Five Minutes to Sea.

1. Alef b’Tamuz by Yael Reisfeld
2. Echo by Borisa Simovic and Kosta Rakicevic
3. Crow: The Legend by Eric Darnell
4. Five Minutes to Sea by Natalia Mirzoyan
5. Reboot by Ellen Osborne
6. Bloeistraat 11 by Nienke Deutz
7. One Small Step by Andrew Chesworth and Bobby Pontillas
8. Grandma’s Pie by Camilo Castro and Ricardo San Emeterio
9. Hybrids by Florian Brauch, Matthieu Pujol, Kim Tailhades, Yohan Thireau and Romain Thirion

تهران تابو / Tehran Taboo

a film by Ali Soozandeh

After reading the synopsis, I had my doubts if I wanted to watch it. Make no mistake, Tehran Taboo is a dark film. It makes Persepolis feel light and cheery. But then, even 40 years after the “Dark Revolution”, Iran must be a rather dark place. Especially for women. Paradoxically, or maybe not, it is the women who are the light of this movie.

映画 聲の形 / A Silent Voice

a film by Naoko Yamada

I missed this anime last year when it was screened in Monopol, so here was another chance. Stylistically somewhere between Only Yesterday and Your Name, A Silent Voice manages to deal with the themes of bullying and suicide in a sensitive way without being dead serious. I found the protagonists, Shōko and Shōya, not too convincing (unlike Shōko’s younger sister Yuzuru and Shōya’s little niece Maria). Also, as Tamara noted, the film could have benefitted from being shorter.

Jeszcze dzień życia / Another Day of Life

a film by Raúl de la Fuente and Damian Nenow

Based on Ryszard Kapuściński’s 1976 novel of the same name, this is a powerful war film combining cutting-edge animation with documentary footage. Long-time Kapuściński fans, Raúl de la Fuente and producer Amaia Remirez travelled to Angola to look for the book’s surviving protagonists, so we meet real-life Arturo, Farrusco and Luis Alberto some 40 years after the events. If you feel a bit confusão, that’s probably meant to be. And you can’t help falling in love with Carlota. Bring your handkerchiefs.