19 Animation, Video Projects, Comics and Board Games for Weird Market 2021
The selection that covers all areas and disciplines of the animation industry is made up of 19 feature films, 34 short films, 31 animation series, 36 video games, 28 web series, 17 transmedia projects, 20 comics and 15 board games. The event, which will be held from September 24th to October 2nd, will feature an onsite presentation of 19 of them, such as: Roped, the second short film by the multi-award-winning Carmen Córdoba; Nayola, the animation feature film for adults by Portuguese José Manuel Ribeiro; the second season of the hit series I, Elvis Riboldi from production company Peekaboo Animation; Out of the Blue Games' Call of the Sea video game; and the already announced feature film Robot Dreams.
ANIMATION FEATURE FILMS, SHORT FILMS, SERIES AND WEBSERIES
The Cárcel_Segovia Centro de Creación will be the space where the presentations will take place, such as the one of the feature film Nayola, by the Portuguese José Manuel Ribeiro. A co-production between Portugal, France, Belgium and the Netherlands that delves into the heartbreaking lives of three generations of women from the same family ravaged by the civil war in Angola. Ribero has a solid career where awards such as the Pardino D’Oro from the Locarno Film Festival in 2016 stand out.
Regarding the short films, more details about Roped de Carmen Córdoba will be unveiled. The Andalusian filmmaker accumulates more than a hundred awards with her first creation (Roberto) and will present this new work (in pre-production) where she deepens into motherhood from all its prisms.
In this same section will also be Buffet Paraíso by Héctor Zafra, the directorial debut of this animator who has participated in multi-award-winning productions such as Mum's the Word by Khris Cembe or Birdboy: The Forgotten Children by Alberto Vázquez and Pedro Rivero.
The third short film confirmed in the program is Homework by Ignacio Diaz Arjona, an illustrator who has done work for Netflix, Playstation or Nestlé and who has a vast legion of followers on social media thanks to his personal and colorful drawing style.
Finally, there is IBIS by Maria Burgués and Enric Sant, one of the winning works of the first edition of Next Lab and winner of the Best Short Film Project Award at the CEE Animation Forum 2021.
The series will have their prominent space in the event and it will be possible to know, for example, the advances of the second season of I, Elvis Riboldi. Developed by the Peekaboo Animation studio, this Spanish-French animation co-production is the adaptation of a collection of books whose first chapters were pre-sold to more than 130 territories in Europe, America, Africa and the Middle East.
Another collaboration between countries is My brother is a T-ReZ, the Portuguese studio Lusco Fusco and the Spanish Mr. Klaus are in the pre-production phase of this work directed by Javier Peces.
The two remaining series presentations will be 100% Spanish productions: Mr. Farmacois and Tiger's trigger. The first one, of 52 seven-minute episodes, is supported by the Tenerife studio La Casa Animada; the second one, by Lamae Studio, is directed by the illustrator, director and actor Javier Botet. The French webseries The Well Hunting by Kawanimation, a project recognized by the Annecy festival, will be presented.
VIDEO GAMES AND TRANSMEDIA PROJECTS
Video games will also be protagonists in Weird Market with two Spanish titles. The first, Call of the Sea, is developed by Out of the Blue Games and set in the confines of the South Pacific during 1934; a national success that just announced a collector's edition on PS4 and PS5 for the end of the year and was nominated for the BAFTA Games Awards. For its part, Moons of Darsalon by Dr. Kucho! Games is a retro-style adventure with influences from Abe Odyssey and Lemmings.
European transmedia projects include works such as Inspector Block by Juan Carlos Mostaza, a famous filmmaker with more than two decades of experience in short films. The winner of a Feroz Award has received numerous recognitions at international festivals such as Giffoni, Montreal or Seminci.
Like Mostaza's work, Kofi by Jesús García Ferrer will also be presented. Born in 2014 as an animated series, Kofi has developed into a transmedia project with three seasons for YouTube and a video game released in 2020. Currently, its animated episodes exceed 4 million views.
Finally, Om Nom & Jackie Jam by Arthur Merkulov and Arkady Shumarin, is a co-production between Spain and Russia focused on children between 7 and 9 years old. The adventure shows audiences how to be a modern streamer or content creator with Om Nom and his production partner Jackie.
COMICS AND BOARD GAMES
The last edition of the Weird Market and 3D Wire Fest introduced comics and board games in its call for projects and this 2021 represents its consolidation with 20 and 15 proposals respectively. Of these, more details of three of them (two comics and a board game) will be revealed in Segovia.
The author Francisco Lobón Leal uses the old name that was used for Halloween night as the headline of his comic: Samhain. An adventure that takes place between two worlds where the characters mix by making dimensional leaps. While Diego G. Reinfeld and Guille Rancel arrive to Segovia to talk about Sorunne, a comic that they seek to adapt into an animation series and turn it into a saga.
Presentations will be completed with Roll Camera! The filmmaking board game by the Swiss Malachi Ray Rempen, a director and screenwriter whose filmography highlights works such as the short film Child of the Desert, recognized by various international festivals.
The 200 projects aim to win one of the awards of this edition. The awards for which they are competing are the Movistar + Short Film Project Award, RTVE Awards for Best Video Game Project, Most Innovative Video Game Project, Weird Plus Video Game - for the video game that breaks the mold, the weirdest one - and the Annecy-MIFA Award for the Best Young Creator’s Series.
Weird Market will be onsite, and with reduced capacity due to the current epidemiological situation.