Anima Mundi is a competitive Brazilian video and film festival devoted exclusively to animation, held every July in the cities of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, Brazil.
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It started in 1993 as an initiative of four Brazilian animators (Aida Queiroz, Cesar Coelho, Lea Zagury and Marcos Magalhaes) and they are still in charge of the festival. Initially it received a lot of attention from the general public, since it had special sessions devoted to computer animations which was a new field.
Initially the festival was held only at the Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil (CCBB) in Rio de Janeiro, but as it grew it is now divided between São Paulo (in the Latin American Memorial) and Rio de Janeiro in the CCBB, Casa França Brasil, Cine ODEON and other venues around the city.
Since its beginning, the festival has been judged by the public, each patron that watches a competitive session receives a ballot with a grading system from 1 to 5. Now there are also professional judges that grade several aspects of the animations, and must watch a large number of the movies.
The main competition is for the popular vote. This is appreciated by independent producers, since their films often have little exposure to the general public. There are in fact two public prizes, one awarded in the Rio de Janeiro phase and the other in São Paulo.
The public prizes are awarded in several categories, in 2005 those were short film, feature film, short for children, Brazilian animation, portfolio, first work and animation in progress. Movies can win in more than one category. Each of the selected films win a monetary prize, the Anima Mundi Trophy and a screening in a special session.
There is also a professional jury. This jury comprises several people from Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. They grade the movies according to several aspects such as animation, script, soundtrack and design. There is a jury in the Rio stage and another in São Paulo, both juries are taken into account to award the prizes that are announced in São Paulo.
The festival sessions consists of five different types:
In the main area of the festival there are several mini-workshops that teach the public how to animate in several styles. There are pixilation, stop motion, hand drawn.
The Anima Mundi crew is also responsible for several other activities including Anima Escola which teaches animation in several public schools in Brasil and the Anima Mundi Intinerante that shows selected films in several other cities in Brazil.
There is also a contest of web and cellular phone animation that runs concurrently with the festival named Anima Mundi Web and Anima Mundi Cell. The participant animations are chosen by the public on the internet (a registration is required to vote) and the winner has their movie shown in the festival sessions.