Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles and Another Day of Life at Animation Is Film Festival 2018

The two Spanish films premiere at the second edition of this animation film festival in Hollywood.

Animation Is Film is a major animation festival produced by Gkids in collaboration with Annecy International Animation Film Festival, Variety, and Asifa Hollywood. The Festival features a highly selective showcase of the best animated films from around the world, plus red carpet, filmmaker Q&As, special events, receptions, short film programs, VR Lounge, and both juried and audience awards. Animation Is Film fills a gap in the market by launching a world class animation festival in the U.S., with its home in the world capital of filmmaking.

Spanish movies at Animation is Film 2018

Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles

• On Saturday, October 20 at 6:45 pm. World Premiere and Q&A with director Salvador Simó. Buy tickets.
• Directed by Salvador Simó, Spain, 2018, 77 minutes.
• In Spanish with English subtitles. Watch trailer.

In a stranger-than-fiction tale befitting the master surrealist filmmaker, Buñuel and the Labyrinth of the Turtles tells the true story of how Buñuel made his second movie. In 1930 in Paris, Salvador Dalí and Luis Buñuel are main figures of the Surrealist movement, but Buñuel is left penniless after a scandal surrounding his first film L’Age d’Or. However, his good friend and sculptor, Ramón Acín, buys a lottery ticket with the promise that, if he wins, he will pay for his next film. Incredibly, luck is on their side, the ticket is a winner and so they set out to make the movie. Both a buddy adventure and fascinating episode of cinematic history, Buñuel and the Labyrinth of the Turtles utilizes sensitive performances as well as excerpts of Buñuel’s own footage from the production, to present a deeply affecting and humanistic portrait of an artist hunting for his purpose.

Another Day of Life

• On Saturday, October 20 at 9:30 pm. Buy tickets.
• Directed by Raúl De La Fuente & Damian Nenow, Poland / Spain / Germany / Belgium / Hungary, 2018, 86 minutes.
• In English, Polish, Portuguese and Spanish. Watch trailer.

One of two animated features selected for the 2018 Cannes lineup, Another Day of Life is an ambitious dive into the chaos of war, based on the book by the journalist Ryszard “Ricardo” Kapuscinski, one of the world’s most compelling chroniclers of conflict. Intercutting a graphically bold animation style with interviews and archival footage, the visually striking film conveys a rare immediacy as it tells of the outbreak of civil war following Angola’s independence from Portugal in 1975. Kapuscinski is portrayed as a reckless and square jawed Indiana Jones type, who against all advice is intent on driving south into the heart of the conflict to find the isolated rebel leader Farrusco (a legendary figure like Kurtz in Heart of Darkness). His animated trip through corpse-strewn roads conveys an undeniable urgency, while the documentary testimony reminds us that we are watching actual history.