4/3/2023
Generation
The Spanish projects Latente by Carlos Zaragoza and Aurora Jiménez, El último spitfire by Renato Roldán and the Colombian LIMBO by Daniel Shambo are the winners of the Next Lab Generation 2023, the benchmark workshop for the animation sector. The trio of winning works will be presented at Annecy MIFA 2023, in addition to receiving €8,000 gross in development aid, three months of mentoring along with travel expenses and accreditation for a representative of the work at the French festival, an international benchmark for the industry. The workshop specialized in the use of new disruptive technologies to improve production processes completes its third edition, doubling its number of accredited participants (400 in 2023), in addition to incorporating an economic endowment to its awards and becoming a showcase for important announcements within the international audiovisual industry. A set of figures and milestones that place it at the forefront, "in a very short time we have positioned the event as a key piece for the animation sector. An initiative that encompasses training, the launching of new talents, an R+D+i laboratory and a space for debate on the present and future of creative and production processes," says José Luis Farias, its director.
The project of Carlos Zaragoza and Aurora Jiménez invites the viewer to a psychological journey between shared memories and unknown feelings, the death of the protagonist's partner generates a puzzle to solve and move forward. Its authors have extensive experience as production designers and visual development artists in animated film respectively, their names appear in international productions such as the animated musical Vivo, The Emoji Movie, El valiente Despereax or the multi-award winning short film La Noria by Carlos Baena.
Renato Roldán presents the dilemma of a pilot who has never been in combat, her convoy is stalked by a ghostly fighter and she must decide whether to finish her mission or face this implacable enemy. The Goya Award nominee for best short film with his debut feature Semilla del recuerdo, has worked as a character designer, animator and storyboard artist. After several years of experience he formed his own company (Balieri Studio) and created Fude Samurai, a videogame that opened the doors of King, a videogame company where he has worked as art director in the Bubble Witch franchise. He currently works as a freelancer in both the video game and animation sectors.
Completing the trio of winners is Colombian Daniel Shambo with the story of the spirit of a man on his journey to hell, a descent that will force him to confront his sins, learn about himself and redeem the multiple souls he carries inside so as not to end up condemned in the underworld. Shambo is a designer specialized in Visual Computing and Art Direction for animation; with skills in VR, interactive animation and creative programming, he has had the opportunity to be part of a large number of projects in all kinds of artistic expressions, achieving that his audiovisual and interactive work was exhibited in Berlin, Dubai or New York.
The jury formed by Susanna Khachatryan, Marc Aguesse, Dune Blanco and Dan Franke wanted to award a special mention to Manolitos by Diego Porral and Joaquín Garralda, which entitles to travel and accreditation to Annecy MIFA 2023.
Next Lab Generation closes its third edition in Madrid with figures that cement its strength: 400 accredited participants (doubling last year's figure), a total of 60 projects received from 13 countries and as a novelty this year the incorporation of a financial endowment to the three awards (€8,000 per project), a pioneering support in this category of events.
Espacio Rastro Madrid has hosted during this final part multiple presentations where innovation in animation has been the common nexus. A stage where successful cases of this workshop have been named, such as Lumen by Enric Sant (winner in 2022) or Amarradas by Carmen Córdoba (finalist last year and nominated for the Goya Award). There has also been room for other less common cinematographies in the big circuits, such as the Armenian through Zako, thefirst animated feature film made entirely in Quill and Blender; the OnOff studio has created this work based on real events, the life of Sargis Mangasaryan, a Soviet Armenian painter, who applied his creative ability to draw portraits of prison guards and thus survive during the Second World War.
The potential of Next Lab Generation has been amplified during this year becoming more than an event, its organization has implemented new areas to the existing ones of training and launching new talents. Sectors such as NEXT LAB R+D+i that has revealed the development of its own free software, within the Call for R&D Projects in Audiovisual and Video Games 2022 of the Ministry of Science and Innovation, through the Center for Technological Development and Innovation (CDTI). With the data collected through a study of two animation pieces, one of them made with VR technology and the other with traditional technology, it has been concluded that in animation pre-production is 76% faster with the use of VR. This conclusion and the realization that current VR software does not meet the needs of the market, has led them to work on Grease Pencil NEXT VR, a software that takes as a basis the creation of Daniel Martinez Lara and allow to incorporate all the VR functionality available within Blender. "It's a way to close the circle of the whole process we are working on at Next Lab and that can be used by any work team" concludes Farias.
The event was also the scene of another important announcement: the IBERMEDIA NEXT call for proposals. A line of aid developed by IBERMEDIA and aimed at the application of new technologies in the field of digital animation and audiovisual content with a high percentage of animation. The initiative covers the entire Ibero-American area and is created by IBERMEDIA itself in alliance with the Quirino Awards and La Liga de la Animación Iberoamericana; a total of up to €150,000 of economic contribution, as well as a training, mentoring, promotion and dissemination program for audiovisual projects and the companies and professionals that lead them, valued at up to €95,000. This aid is part of the 'Spain Audiovisual Hub of Europe' component of the European Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan, financed with Next Generation funds.
Next Lab Generation 2023 is sponsored by the Community of Madrid through the Council for Culture, Tourism, and Sport as a main sponsor, with financial support from the Institute for Cinematography and Audiovisual Arts (ICAA), as part of the Recovery, Transformation, and Resilience Plan advanced by the European Union, the participation of the Ministry of Culture, DeAPlaneta Entertainment, and the Municipal Government of Madrid, and collaboration from Enisa, Annecy Festival and Weird Market.