Animation, video games and new media come together at Weird Market

From September 27 to October 2, for the first time in Valencia, more than 350 professionals will participate in Weird Market with presentations, talks, a recruitment day, free screenings, networking spaces and for the first time it will be held in the capital of Turia.

The La Beneficència Cultural Center will receive prominent names in the sector such as Rocío Tomé, Sensei Dani, Víctor Santos, Charlotte Sánchez or Javi Cepa. On Friday, September 30 and Saturday, October 1, outstanding talks will take place such as Animation and video games on Twitch, CHow to transfer an IP from the comic to the screen, What are toy stores looking for? o Animation co-productions with television and public institutions, where representatives of Famosa, Simba Toys, ColorBaby, Magic Box, RTVE, TV3, À Punt, AGADIC, ICEC, Tenerife Film Commission and IVC have confirmed their presence.

The event has been working for several years for and for the creation of bridges between all of Latin America, a path of work that has been consolidated and will be evident in milestones such as the conference Territory Focus Italia, where Alfio Bastiancich and Anne Sophie Vanhollebeke from Cartoon Italia will present the current panorama of transalpine animation. The Portuguese short film project A Menina dos olhos occupations by André Carrilho and Blablabla Media will also be unveiled.

Furthermore, on Sunday, September 18 at the San Sebastián Festival, Spanish Screenings On Tour announced the awards for its first edition, created in collaboration with prominent markets in our country, where Weird Market will award the Weird Market – Spanish Screenings Anímate Award, which consists of the incorporation of a project selected by Weird Market to the Animation section program! Ventana Sur and the activities of #SpanishScreeningsOnTour in the most important market in Latin America. The selection criterion will be its potential for co-production with Latin America.

The 2022 edition will feature the poster designed by the Ibero-American artist Jossie Mails, who will also be another of the protagonists of the presentations together with Julie Reier, both of whom will talk about how to transfer animation and moving images to a tactile format through their editorial project “Flipboku” from which they reinvent the flipbook.

Recruitment

One of the hallmarks of Weird Market and an example of the employment potential of the animation industry is the recruitment day. On Thursday the 29th a total of 16 companies will bring together their headhunters looking for new profiles; 3 Doubles Producciones, Alba Sotorra, Ánima Kitchent, Aupa Studio, B Water Animation Studios, El Ranchito, Hampa Studio, La Mola Films, Mago Production, Lusco Fusco Animation, Sauvage TV, The Glow Animation Studio, The SPA Studios, Tomavision, TV On Producciones and Wise Blue Studios are the names of the studios that will meet with multiple candidates.

Along with this budding talent, the present and future of animation will have its space in the presentation of projects. A total of 24 proposals (of the 170 selected for the catalogue) will be announced at the event. Three feature films, seven short films, six animated series, a web series, four video games, a transmedia project, a comic and a board game will be the highlights presented by their creators.

short film festival

The event covers various areas of audiovisual culture and one of them is cinema. The WFest (Weird Market International Animated Short Film Festival) will screen 38 short films in competition in five free blocks: Tuesday, September 27, Thursday, 29, and Sunday, October 2. The Film Library of Valencia (Edificio Rialto) will be the headquarters of this contest where works from 18 cinemas will be seen with world premieres such as those of the last two Movistar Plus+ Short Project Awards by Weird Market: He ran alongside his comrade from Genis Rigol and Amarradas by Carmen Córdoba.

The final list of winners will be made up of the public awards and those of the professional jury, a quartet made up of the American Jamie Lang, the French Charlotte Sánchez, the Spanish María Manero Muro and the Portuguese João Apolinário.