Córdoba Animation Festival — Anima 05 was the third edition of the international animation festival in Córdoba, Argentina. All images courtesy of Anima 05.

Walking through the streets of Córdoba, the second largest city in Argentina, it feels like another time and place. In the stretch of a few blocks there are parrots huddling in the trees, horse-drawn carts whipped through the alleyways, and a small, brown bat dead on the morning sidewalk. Internet cafés are plentiful for the burgeoning student population, with access to “La Red” (the Spanish equivalent of “The Net”) costing little more than 50 cents an hour. There are dogs everywhere, too — lean and jaunty, freely roaming alongside the humans, sleeping on the steps of the cathedral — in some sort of parallel canine society.

Argentina is a beautiful blend of Spanish, Italian and native peoples. From Buenos Aires, a megapolis of 12 millions souls (once considered the “Paris” of South America), to the calving glaciers of Tierra del Fuego (the last jumping-off point of civilization and continent before heading to Antarctica), the whole country seems blessed, in its way.

It is not uncommon for people here to have three jobs in order to piece together a livelihood. The national economy has been depressed for the last several years. Everything is upside down, and even the stars in the inky heavens are somewhat of a novelty for my northern eyes. Yet Argentina seems the kind of place where their passion and innovation will carry them through. In the absence of a strong economy, as one person put it, “we must imagine everything.” For artists, there is no luxury of materials or equipment. If need be, an animator will improvise using his window as a lightbox.

Depending on whom you ask, Argentina may conjure memories of Ernetsto “Che” Guevara, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, or animator Oscar Grillo. The animation community is small, as one might guess, which is perhaps why Argentinean-born Grillo founded Klacto Animations in London some twenty-odd years ago. (As the world is ever-becoming a smaller place, you can keep current with Grillo via his online journal, okgrillo.blogspot.com.) But as nebulous as the animation scene may be, it makes up with its determination.

Patagonik Film Group (www.patanimation.com) intends to release an animated feature every two years, building upon the success of Patoruzito (2004), a children’s story based on the 75-year-old characters of legendary Argentine comic artist Dante Quinterno. Fitting of the studio’s ambitions, Patoruzito tells the mythopoetic tale of a boy who fights to claim the title of chief in his Patagonian tribe.

Italo-Argentine cartoonist Quirino Cristiani created El Apóstol (1917), the first known animated feature, and Peludópolis (1931), the first animated feature with sound, both about the political corruption in Buenos Aires.

The Universidad Nacional de Córdoba is one of the oldest universities in South America. The Centro Experimental de Animación is a research and extension branch of the university’s Department of Film and Television. Professors Alejandro González and Carmen Garzón — along with a non-profit cultural organization, the Centro Cultural España-Córdoba — help to organize the biennial Córdoba Animation Festival (Anima). The festival celebrates the diversity of animation and aims to fill a void in the audiovisual spectrum in Argentina. It serves as a forum to exhibit works of Latin American animators, and to strengthen the local animation community in allowing animators and educators to meet and exchange experiences.