Ten years of CHILEMONOS
The challenges of Chilemonos Foundation were clear from the beginning: to turn Chilean animation into a main character within the cultural agenda of Chile; to lead the way for the national industry to reach an international standard; to promote the work with animation schools in order to support the training of new directors and animators; to build commercial connections and alliances at a Latin-American and international level; and of course, to be a key element in building our identity in animation.
Consequently, we have focused our efforts on five lines of action: culture, industry, training, research and diffusion. With events such as the International Animation Festival Chilemonos; the free business marketplace MAI! Mercado Animación Industria; Monocycle; the presentation of “Del Cóndor al Oso,” Monos en Short, Monos de Nieve, Monos INC, Solomonos Magazine and the animation film club Monoclub, among others. All of this has been possible thanks to the support of our initial partners, the Ministry of Culture, Arts and Heritage, Universidad Mayor, Universidad Santo Tomás, and the people who have joined us throughout our journey.
In this decade we have completed 1,190 activities; 4,300 business meetings; we have convened 900 companies; 431,288 people and 209 official guests, including world renown speakers such as, Steve Martino (The Peanuts Movie), Jorge Gutiérrez (The Book of Life), Brenda Chapman (Brave, Oscar 2013), Carlos Saldanha (Rio, Ice Age), Shinichiro Watanabe (Cowboy Bebop), Peter Lord (Aardman Animations), Mark Shapiro (Laika), Yoshihiro Shimizu (Tezuka Productions) and Paul Harrod (Isle of Dogs), in addition to world leaders in education such as Gobelins (Paris), Vancouver Film School, La Cambre/ Belgium among others, and branches at GAM, MAVI, Cine UC, M100, Cineteca, and associated Universities.
The quality of the editorial process for the Chilemonos Festival paired with all our hard work made us a qualifying festival for the prestigious Academy Awards as of 2019. Since its first edition, held at the Gabriela Mistral Cultural Center (GAM) between 25-29 April in 2012, our Short film, Feature film and Series competition has received a total of 14,736 submissions from professionals and students from around the world.
After 10 years of unrestricted commitment and hard work to support Chilean animation, we have experienced how the objectives we originally set for ourselves are now part of the reality of the national industry. Today, we are part of the international festival circuit for animation. We have become, in a natural way, a Latin-American referent thanks to our Festival, market, film club and training activities. An honor and responsibility, which we will continue to work on with the same professionalism and passion that have defined us throughout all these years. We are ready to start a new decade, with new challenges and alliances.