Ánima Estudios, Artistic Heritage Transformed into Animation Almost 15 years after it was founded, this Mexican creative company has made around 10 films and several animated episodes for television that have been shown and broadcast in countries in the Americas and Europe. With a grandfather and father who were filmmakers and an actress mother, an artistic legacy runs through the veins of Fernando De Fuentes, director of Ánima Estudios, that has him focused on the field of animation. With nearly 10 films and several episodes of animated series, De Fuentes has created an audiovisual product that has been seen in several countries in Latin America and Europe. Before the end of the 90s, Fernando De Fuentes was a young engineer who joined the ranks of a small electronic website. There he focused on animation with characters parodying personalities in Mexican sports, such as footballer Cuauhtémoc Blanco and commentator José Ramón Fernández. By 2000, the media company closed its doors but De Fuentes and 15 other partners decided to start a company 100% dedicated to animation. Ánima Estudios was born. Supported by 20th Century Fox, in 2003 Ánima Estudios created Wizards and Giants, its first animated film that produced just enough profit for the creative studio to undertake other productions. In 2006, Televisa –Mexico’s main television network– and the family of actor Roberto Gómez Bolaños asked Fernando De Fuentes’s company to embark on a challenging task: to create the animated version of El Chavo, a character created by Gómez Bolaños himself which for decades had enjoyed great success throughout Latin America. The animated series El Chavo was released after 18 months of work. It featured 135 episodes of animation –including the leading roles of the original TV program– and aired in 16 countries in Latin America, as well as Spain and Canada. The first episodes of the series were adaptations of some of the scripts from the original series. But for the second season, the Ánima Estudios and Roberto Gómez Bolaños teams worked on new stories for the animated character. Throughout its career, Ánima Estudios has chosen to inject a touch of Mexico into each of its productions. Each project has portrayed stories, legends, and ways of life from Mexican society but at the same time has made them universal, to make them understandable in other parts of the world. “We saw two aspects to the business: one was to the local market, with the traditions and customs that identify Mexicans, but we also wanted to create films with an international reach. That is why we did Don Gato (Top Cat), with different partners, which in the end has been shown in more than 60 countries, both in film theaters and on video and television,” says De Fuentes. Top Cat, the Hanna Barbera character, was made into a film in 2011 by Ánima Estudios. The movie has been screened in cinemas in 27 different countries; in England it was among the top 10 movies for almost four weeks. La leyenda de la Llorona (The Legend of La Llorona) and La leyenda de las momias (The Legend of the Mummies) –to be premiered in 2014– are some of the classic movies by Ánima Estudios that incorporate Mexican traditions and myths. Another of the company’s major projects is Teenage Fairytale Dropouts, a series made with investment from Australia and Ireland, which has been shown in over 20 countries. The animated series deals with the story of three teenagers whose life unfolds in a world of wizards, giants, and fairies. Over 14 years, Ánima Estudios has partnered with companies such as Warner Brothers, Cartoon Network, and Nickelodeon, among others. According to Fernando De Fuentes, animation is an industry that provides significant dividends to the Mexican economy. The creator notes that, due to the economic importance of the sector, agencies like ProMéxico have focused their efforts on promoting Mexican creative companies in different countries. Proof of that, he says, is that this year Mexico is the guest country at the MIPCOM international television festival in Cannes, France. “It has been up to us to emonstrate that this industry generates many jobs and exports to many countries. We are continuing to grow and I think in 10 years the outlook will be much better for this industry,” he concludes.
Posted on: Fri, 24 Oct 2014 07:33:41 +0000
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