DONOSTIARRA DIRECTOR ISABEL HERGUERA, ANIMAC 2024 HONORARY AWARD

She will receive the award at the 28th International Animated Film Festival of Catalonia to be held in Lleida from February 15 to 18, 2024

Animac will screen a retrospective of his work, including his first feature film “The Sultana’s Dream”, awarded the Basque Cinema Award at the last San Sebastián Festival and nominated for the 2024 Goya Awards

The Espai Cavallers will host an exhibition with original drawings from the film “The Sultana’s Dream”

 

The 28th edition of Animac, the International Animation Film Festival of Catalonia, organized by the Lleida City Council from February 15 to 18 of 2024, awards the Honorary Award to Isabel Herguera (San Sebastián, 1961), visual artist, director, producer and animation film teacher with a long international career, and a great expert on Animac, since she was the director from 2003 to 2011.

Animac will dedicate a retrospective to Isabel Herguera with the projection of a selection of his short films, including his first and long-awaited feature film “The sultana’s dream” (Spain, Germany, 2023) , nominated for this year’s Goya Awards and with which she was nominated for the Golden Shell and won the Basque Cinema award at the last San Sebastián Festival. In addition, the San Sebastian director will offer a masterclass for the Animac audience where she will review her work within the world of cinema animation.

“It is a pleasure for us to have Isabel Herguera in the next edition of the Exhibition and to grant her the highest Animac award, for her contribution to the world of both national and international animated cinema”, highlights the current director of Animac, Carolina López. “She will be the first Spaniard to be awarded the Honorary Animac Award, since, until now, this distinction has been for top-level international creators, and always filmmakers with a very personal and independent vision, such as the by Isabel Herguera”, points out López.

In addition to the retrospective and the masterclass by Isabel Herguera, the Animac public will be able to get closer to her creative process by visiting the exhibition “The sultana’s dream ” which will host the Espai Cavallers de Lleida (Calle Cavallers, 31-33) where a selection of original drawings and other materials from the film will be exhibited. 

 

ISABEL HERGUERA, HONORARY AWARD

Animated film director with international training and professional experience, Isabel Herguera graduated in Fine Arts from the University of the Basque Country, continued her studies at the Kunstakademie of Düsseldorf as student of the video artist Nam June Paik, and completed her training with a master’s degree at the California Institute of the Arts, CalArts, in Los Angeles.

From 1990 to 2003 she lived in Los Angeles where she worked as an animator for Acme Filmworks, Klasky Csupo and for directors such as Maureen Selwood, Raimund Krumme and Sue Laughlin or Paul Vester, and collaborated on music videos like All around the world by Oasis (1997) or Sting’s Interactive Cd Rom All this Time (1996). In 1996 she set up Loko Pictures, an animation studio where she produced and directed work for clients such as Philip Morris, FOX, Procter and Gamble and HBO, among others.

In 2003 she returned to Europe to direct Animac and coordinate the Arteleku Moving Image Laboratory in San Sebastián. During these years she made several short films such as “La gallinablina” (Spain, 2005); “Ámár” (Spain, 2010); “Under the pillow” (Spain, 2012); “Amore  d’inverno” (2014), “Kutxa beltza” (Spain, 2016); “The Illustrated Woman” (Spain, 2023) and she produces “Berbaoc” (Spain, 2007) and “Sailor’s Grave” (Spain, Colombia, China, Oman, 2014). In 2023 she directs “The Sultana’s Dream” (Spain, Germany, 2023), her first feature film.

Currently, Herguera combines her cinematographic work with her work as an animation professor at the Kunsthochschule für Median in Cologne (Germany).

 

ANIMAC DIVERSITY WILL PROJECT “THE SULTANA’S DREAM”, A FEMINIST STORY

In an edition dedicated to diversity, Animac will screen “The Sultana’s Dream”, directed by Herguera and based on a classic story of feminist utopian literature written by the author Begum Rokeya Hossain and published in 1905 that describes a country ruled by women.

The film deals with issues of social interest such as feminism and how to break with gender discrimination; education as an instrument of human liberation; the dream and utopia, with a reflection by the philosopher Paul B. Preciado on the political value of dreams, which are the necessary premise of critical thinking; the personal responsibility of the individual towards himself and others; ecology and harmony with nature; sexuality influencing the richness of sexual manifestations and esteem without judgments of morality; violence against women, and pacifism, among others.

Inés, the protagonist, is a young woman from San Sebastian incapable of dreaming and a little lost who accidentally discovers the book The Sultana’s Dream where the Country of Women is described, a place where the women are all scientists and have the power while men are locked at home, limited by their ignorance. Fascinated by this classic of feminist utopian literature, and by its author, the Muslim writer and activist Begum Rokeya Hossain, Inés embarks on an initiatory journey through from India in search of traces of the author and the Country of Women.

The film has the collaboration of Indian Mehndi artists (temporary tattoos with henna) and independent animators such as Maria Manero, Izibene Oñederra and Rocío Álvarez (author of the image of Animac), among others.

 

ANIMAC 2024 “DIVERSITY”

Animac will have diversity in animated cinema as its theme under the motto “Diversity”. In recent years the animated film industry has been making steps towards greater diversity in terms of voices, stories and characters. Studies have recognized the importance of reflecting the richness of human experiences, representing not only various cultures but also a variety of gender identities, sexual orientations, and physical and cognitive abilities.

Diversity will be the leitmotif of a program that will be announced later to receive the best of animated cinema in Lleida with monographic sessions and retrospectives, in addition to a careful selection of short films and recently created feature films from all over the world, conferences and masterclasses for all types of audiences.

In addition to the theme of diversity being present in the films, the next edition of Animac opens up to integrate groups that have been working for years and demanding inclusion from different aspects. The spaces will be adapted, there will be a Lila Point, and relaxed sessions designed for people with special needs will be scheduled, among other new features.