Peter Lord
Peter Lord co-founded Aardman Animations in 1972 and serves as its chairman and managing director. As a director, he has been honored with two Academy Award nominations for Best Animated Short, for Wat's Pig (1996) and Adam (1992), for which he also received a BAFTA nomination.

Without doubt there's something strange and distorting about being a "Special Guest" at a festival. On one hand, everyone treats you with incredible kindness and generosity; on the other it's difficult, between general merrymaking, dining, giving interviews and meeting the Mayor, to appreciate the festival as the average attendee might.

But that applies to almost any festival. Anima Mundi, I can report, is distinguished by a particularly warm and generous atmosphere and Rio, as a venue, has a pretty good reputation for the high life. In fact from time to time, while I was there, Rio seemed to me a caricature of itself. What do you expect? Stunning scenery, football on the beach, beautiful people, dancing, music, partying? Joie de vivre? Yes. All present and correct. I've seldom been in the company of so many people gently but firmly dedicated to enjoying life.

Peter Lord found that Rio fit all his preconceived notions of the good life, plus the audiences and the festival venue added to the happy experience.

But, hey, this isn't a plug for Rio, nor yet a recommendation that everyone should go to Anima Mundi as a special guest (nice thought though). So between the sightseeing, the eating, drinking, dancing and shameless hedonism of it all, what do I remember? Well, two things. First the great audiences. The festival's big screen was in a temporary cinema erected in a square outside the festival headquarters. Whenever I went (not often enough), it was packed with people who seemed genuinely receptive to animated films in all their diversity. The obvious comic crowd pleasers did indeed please the crowd who made plenty of enthusiastic noise to emphasize the point, but the obscure, the abstract and the challenging were also received with real warmth and intelligence, which doesn't happen at all festivals by any means.

And the second memory is simply the National Bank Building, which provides a handsome and spectacular venue for the festival. Some festivals are centered just around cinemas and screenings, some have a club bar, others bookshops and trade stalls. But Anima Mundi has animation happening out in the open all day and hungry crowds queuing up to take part. In one of the main halls, students and volunteers manned cameras and recorders where the general public, very many of them children, could come and try their hand. One group were doing pixillation — children in a variety of fancy dress costumes grew, shrunk, changed sex, flew, skated and disappeared into tiny boxes. Another group, dear to my heart — were producing clay animation, building models and animating them on two or three stages. While a third group were busily drawing flip-books and zoetropes. All in all, the hall was ringing with noise, energy, creativity and fun. It was hard to fight your way through crowds of people not merely sitting and watching but actually making animation. And the long queues of people waiting their turn showed how much desire there was to get involved.

A hugely enjoyable festival certainly, but also a place where tomorrow's animators are being actively encouraged in a marvelous creative atmosphere.

Darlene Chan is managing editor of Animation World Magazine. After receiving a bachelor's degree from UCLA, Darlene happened into the motion picture business and stayed for 14 years. She served as a production executive for Paramount Pictures, Walt Disney Pictures, Davis Entertainment and Motown. She produced Grumpy Old Men (1993) for Warner Bros. In 2001, she joined Animation World Magazine. One of her most cherished journeys was a long visit to Brazil ten years ago.