Flying Down to Rio

Anima Mundi, mostly in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, but also a bit in Säo Paulo too, was one of the more enjoyable festivals, if for no other reason than there was music playing wherever we went, sexy sambas, soft bossa novas, and exciting carnival music, never out of range from some sort of music.  On the recommendation of John Canemaker, who we’d interviews in NYC a couple of year earlier, Anima Mundi hosted two UPA film screenings, plus a third program of clips and a Q&A with Tee Bosustow, first in Rio, and then repeated in São Paulo.  For the programers, which included Mark Walsh from Pixar, John Weldon from NFB, Mark Kelley from Laika, Mikhail Aldashin, from Moscow, and Tee Bosustow from Burbank, it also meant plenty of time seeing the sights, eating barbecue, and dancing samba, than actually attending their programs.  Pictured to the left above are presenters Mikhail Aldashin and Tee Bosustow with one of the festival directors, Lea Zagury.

Like all the festivals they paid our flights to Rio, our transportation every day to a different sight in Rio and São Paulo, the flight to São Paulo, all our meals, and of course a hotel room, however the view from our balconies overlooking crescent shaped Copacabana beach and Sugar Loaf mountain at the end, was not exactly a normal hotel view.  But, as marvelous as the sights were, especially in Rio, what we were most intrigued by was the immense and informed animation community in Brazil.  The only non-Brazilians it seemed were from the US, Canada, and Russia, oh, and there were a few from other South American countries.  It was there that we apparently made an impression on a young animation designer named, Fernando Ferreira Garróz, who later designed our little laughing boy logo, and sent us a copy of a radio interview done in Hong Kong with Steve Bosustow.

Category: Festivals