Animadrid 2009 tribute to Walter Tournier

The Uruguayan animator alter Tournier will receive the tribute from the International Animated Image Festival of Pozuelo de Alarcón-Comunidad de Madrid. The retrospective “An Open Window: South America” will close this cycle dedicated to Latin American animation.

The Pozuelo de Alarcón International Animated Image Festival – Community of Madrid, a must-see event for experts and fans of the best animated cinema in the world, is finalizing its preparations for its tenth edition, which will take place between September 24 and October 2, 2009. After last year's success with the Latin American retrospective, focused on Central American countries, this edition wants to close an important cycle of Hispanic animated cinema, with the retrospective “An Open Perspective: South America.” This cycle covers a sample of the best cinema from the 60s to the present day, with works by established directors such as Carlos Santa and Fernando Laverde (Colombia), Alberto Monteagudo (Venezuela) and Vienne Berry (Chile).

In addition, new filmmakers from the Latin American scene emerge with international force, who will also be present in this retrospective, such as Simon Wilches (Colombia), who will be a member of the festival's animation school jury. Names like Cecilia Traslaviña (Colombia), Tomás Weiss (Chile), Jesús Pérez (Bolivia) or José Pedersen (Paraguay) will bring us their new cinema, new trends and formats within animation.

This retrospective will also include works made by authors who have had to produce them outside their countries, either for economic or political reasons, as is the case of the Colombians Luis Nieto and Alejandra Jiménez or the Chilean Vivianne Berry. To completely close this cycle, Animadrid pays tribute in this edition to the Uruguayan director Walter Tournier.

Walter Tournier

Born in Montevideo in 1944, Walter Tournier studied Architecture until he discovered that animated film was his true calling. He was a member of the C3M (Cinemateca del Tercer Mundo, Montevideo 1969-1974), making his debut feature before its dissolution, In the jungle there is a lot to do, in 1974, a film with beautiful drawings and cutouts whose 17-minute duration made it the longest work of animation that had been made in Uruguay up to that time. In Peru – where he was exiled until 1985 – he added a second passion (Archaeology) and made various short films with a modern and open style, which offered new models to filmmakers and which defined the techniques that Tournier would later use with notable mastery, such as cut-out animation (The condor and the fox, 1980) or clay animation (Our little paradise, 1985).

Returning to Uruguay, he founded the company Imagens with his friend Mario Jacob, where he directed the animation department. There he had a unique experience with children that was translated into the film The hiding places of the sun (1990), a cinematographic work that sought to rescue childhood experiences lived during the period of dictatorship that was established in Uruguay in 1973 and that would end in 1985 with the advent of democracy. He also made a couple of documentaries and coordinated, along with the
Danish directors María Mac Dalland and Malene Vilstrup, an ambitious Animation Workshop in which new filmmakers were trained who completed their “graduation” with the nine-part series Mother Earth (1991). In 1994 he left this production company to form Tournier Animation, keeping his company active ever since thanks to both the exemplary way of making and producing as well as the thematic variety of his magnificent work, which has earned him many awards around the world.

Children's television series The Tatitos (1997), whose stories that take place in different environments each provide a message of human value, achieved great success in Uruguay and Argentina, and opened the doors to the international world, subsequently directing such delightful titles as The boss and the carpenter (2000) y Caribbean Christmas (2001), produced for Welsh television. For the Argentine director Fernando Birri, Tournier directed, designed and made the puppets of his
documentary feature film The century of the wind (1999).