Direct call from Anima Mundi selection:

1,256 DVDs are already circulating on Anima Mundi "Babel Tower". Only 200 are missing to the end of receipts! Very very soon we'll have the list of selected films of this year!

And already a record was broken: 17 feature films submitted this year!

Anima TV on air!

This Sunday (April 17), Trunk Train and Duck-ticks and Catapults, both carried out by AnimaTV program, will debut on TV Cultura and TV Brasil. This will be the first time ever that national television channels will air an animated series entirely created and produced in Brazil.

Anima Mundi closely followed the progress of this important project for the deployment of Brazilian animated series on national open television. Those who have attended the panel "Anima TV - an assessment" in Anima Forum 2010 may have heard producer Marta Machado, president of ABCA (Brazilian Association of Animated Cinema), recalling that AnimaTV project started to be planned in the 2008 Anima Forum. The director of Trunk Train, Zé Brandão, said the seed of the series was born when he was attending a masterclass of Anima Mundi.

Among the positive points raised by the participants of the discussion in Anima Forum, the stimulus to formation is one of the most important. Cristiana Oliveira, executive coordinator of AnimaTV, highlighted the great opportunity offered through workshops on the methodology of producing an animated series.

But today we really want to congratulate the producers of the debutting series, Copa Studio and Zoom Elefante. We wish success and continuity for this season and for the next ones!

Visit the blogs of Trunk Train (http://www.trombatrem.blogspot.com) and Duck-ticks and Catapults (http://www.tvbrasil.org.br/animatv/carrapatos-catapultas/index.php).

AnimaTV, First Program for Production and TV Broadcast of Brazilian Series, is a realization of the Audiovisual Secretary - SAV and the Department of Cultural Policy - SPC, the Ministry of Culture - MINC, Brazil Communications Company – TV Brasil, Padre Anchieta Founding - TV Cultura, the Brazilian Association of Educational and Cultural Public Broadcasters - ABEPEC, with the support of the Brazilian Association of Animation Film - ABCA.

Priit Pärn art at Anima Mundi 2011

The art of this year’s festival, created exclusively by Priit Pärn, the most famous cartoonist and animator from Estonia, is already at the Anima Mundi site (http://www.animamundi.com.br )!

Pärn is an international animation celebrity and was our guest in 2009 for the Animated Chat!

Priit Pärn has been present with his work in Anima Mundi since 1999, when an Estonian Retrospective featured three of his movies: Kolmnurk (1982), 1895 (co-directed with Janno Põldma, 1995) and Night of the Carrots (1998). In 2006, Frank ja Wendy, Hungerburg (2004), co-directed with Priit Tender, Ülo Pikkov and Kaspar Jancis, was screened at the Short Film Competition, as well as Tuukrid Vihmas (2009), co-directed with his wife Olga Pärn, in our 2010 edition.

In 2009 Anima Mundi had the honor to receive Priit and Olga Pärn in person for the Animated Chat, with a retrospective session that exhibited 1985, Remix (2000), Oiva (2001), Karl and Marilyn (2003) and Ma Kukla Tunnen Eluaegset Kuula... (2007, co-directed with Olga Pärn).

Pärn has also been an Animation Professor for 18 years, art director of the Department of Animation Art Academy of Turku in Finland and art director and animation school Joonisfilm of Tallinnfilm Studio.

As the recent Priit Pärn films, the illustration for Anima Mundi was also made in collaboration with his wife Olga. We have asked the artist to portrait his impressions of our festival and Brazil, so different and distant from Estonia… The result brings us the same irony and irreverence that characterize his animations. Thanks, Priit and Olga!

"Rio", by Carlos Saldanha

"Rio" debuts in Brazil as the animation feature most expected ever by Brazilians. Everybody here is curious to watch the adventures of Blu, a male macaw supposed to date the last female of his species, traveling through the postcard sceneries of our wonderful city.

Carlos Saldanha, director of the film, was born in Rio and is a longtime friend of Anima Mundi! Carlos attended the festival since he was a student in New York and spent his holidays in Brazil. After that, representing the studio Blue Sky, he presented a seminar on computer graphics in 1996 and another in 1997 called “Light. Camera & Action”. In 2000, Blue Sky won the Best Portfolio prize and in 2002, after directing "Ice Age", Carlos Saldanha came to participate in Animated Chat by telling the audience about his career as animation director.

Those who attend the festival for a long time will certainly keep with care a VHS copy of the "The Best of Anima Mundi Vol.1" anthology, featuring Saldanha's graduation short film, "Time For Love" (1994).

We look forward to receive Carlos Saldanha again in Anima Mundi 2011 to celebrate together the success of "Rio"!