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Nik playing music in the kitchen of the Basque eating club.
We arrived
at our new home Gent, Belgium on April 29th. After a whirlwind five days
we were off to Spain with our two dogs, musical instruments (including
an 88 key piano) and necessary equipment in a rented van. We headed for
Lisbon, Portugal where Nik was invited to give a workshop and perform
opening night at the Monstra Animation Festival. We were also invited
to attend a wonderful Spanish Festival on our way to Lisbon by our Latvian
friend Signe Baumane.
We would never turn down a chance to party with Signe and the festival
honoring her with a much-deserved retrospective turned out to be an unexpected
extra treat. When we arrive at the 2nd Basauri International Animation
Festival we were warmly welcomed by the festival director Maria Jesus
Diez Sota and her staff and in true European style were immediately offered
food and wine. We were just in time to join them for part of a three-hour
lunch at a Spanish Cooking Club. I have heard about the fabled meals
that the Basque men create for each other and their guests, but never
thought that I would get to enjoy such a truly magnificent experience.
Anima Basauri 2, held from May 2nd through 7th in Basauri, Spain, is
a young festival that is very old world at heart. Basauri, in the Basque
region of Spain, a few miles from Bilbao, receives government support
for the arts. Unfortunately, we were only able to be there for the last
two days, but they were jam packed with film and meetings with old and
new friends.
Mexico was the featured country this year. Anima Basauri 2 presented
a wide spectrum of animation from Mexico, from the 1937 six minute film Noche
Mexicana directed by Alfonso Vergara Andrade, to the new feature Imaginum (2005)
which looked very interesting in the catalogue. Hopefully I will be able
to see it soon at either Annecy or Zagreb.
The Mexican journalist and film historian Juan Manuel Aurrecoechea was
a guest of the festival, and was a delight to meet. He gave me a copy
of his 2004 book El Episodio Perdido: Historia del cine mexicano
de animación (A Lost Episode:History of Mexican Animation),
which I am painstakingly reading with my creative Spanish, and will write
about in the near future. It is amazing that after living in California
for so many years I had to move halfway around the world to see an in
depth presentation of the animation of our neighbor to the South!
The thirty films in the short format competition featured mostly Spanish
works, with the majority of the rest coming from other European countries.
Signe Baumane’s and Bill Plympton’s lovely The Fan And
The Flower were the only two United States films in the short competition.
The DVD competition, of which Signe was one of six judges, was equally
strong, with 25 entries. Signe told me that for some reason, children
really love The Dentist and at the Zagreb festival it will be in the
children’s’
film competition.
There were five special screening of French animation (French Animation
In All It’s Glory) from the International Animated Film Cinema
(AFCA), which covered a wide range of techniques and French animation
history, and three 2005 Oscar nominated films were shown.
Award winning Spanish producer/director Josep Pozo was honored with screenings
of two of his Filmax Production: the 2003 film El Cid, The Legend, and Gisaku. Señor
Pozo also screened The Making Of Donkey Xote (think Cervantes),
a 35mm short about the making of his feature length film Donkey Xote (premiering
in 2007). He also gave a lecture on the same topic.
Rounding out the week was Signe’s retrospective and a retrospective
of European Cinema Schools, including 9 ZERO of Catalunya and KASK Hogeschool,
the Royal Academy of Gent. Just to make sure that there was never a free
moment, there was an exhibit of animation posters, plus conferences and
round table discussions.
On Saturday night the festival director and her husband took a group
of us to old town Bilbao, where people line the streets partying and
drinking all night. The custom is to go from bar to bar, one drink at
each bar, with occasional tapas orders, including the famous cured ham
that the region is famous for. By custom, people smash their empty glasses
on the street, making for a crunchy walk by the end of the night.
Somehow, Maria seemed to move our entire party, speaking a variety
of languages, from place to place to place through the crowded streets
without losing anyone. The last bar that Signe, Nik and I went to was
so littered with spilled drinks that it seemed impossible to dance
on the dance floor, but people indeed were! Many people were dressed
in costume and there was a festive air of “Carnival every Saturday night” On Sundays
nothing is open (everyone sleeping off Saturday night) for café
or tea, let alone the wonderful pastry that Nik needs to get moving.
We dutifully got up to see a retrospective at 10:00a.m.
The awards ceremony was held on Sunday and although there were only
a few awards presented, the euro award that went with them was very
generous. Hungary’s The District won the feature category, a film
that I have seen several times and really applaud. There is very little
quality animation for teenage boys, and in the same way that Miyazaki
has made animation relevant to teenage girls, The District speaks to
high school age boysFallen Art, a Polish film by Tomek Baginski
was awarded the Best Animated Short prize in the official section. It
was given 1,000 EUR and a “Basauri Saria” trophy.
A jury prize for Best Short in the Karatu (DVD) section was given to Countdown, a
German film directed by Krishna Saraswati.
After the awards there was a lovely party upstairs in the theatre. Although
there was more delicious food and wine than the group could ever consume,
the guests were then invited back to the Spanish Eating Club for more
food, drink and a soccer game on the giant telly. Mexican animator Isaac
Sandoval and Nik completed another wonderful evening with an impromptu
concert, with Isaac playing percussion improvised on kitchen pots and
pans and Nik on clarinet. It is always sad to leave new friends but we
will all be in contact.
Basauri is a warm and welcoming festival, and although it is only in
its second year, this is a festival that will continue to grow, because
of the wide range of animation that it presents, the support of the town
and the Basque government and thanks to the astute direction and hard
work of it’s festival head, Maria and her wonderful staff. I hope
that more American animators will discover the Basauri Animation Festival.
The combination of Basque warmth and charm with a wonderful mix of animation
from around the world makes this a festival to look forward to all year
long. You can get more information at www.animabasauri.com.
We are off next to Lisbon for the Monstra Animation Festival
all text© 2006 Nancy Denny-Phelps