New winds – Women in Animation
We are living in a time that is absolutely shaking old paradigms. A time of tremendous learning and very revealing in several aspects that also relate to our work: to make animation.
Symbols of these new winds are the voices of women in animation who contribute new points of view and ways of creating content based on mutualism and horizontalidad, exploring other ways of guiding teams and leading animation productions. Clear examples of this are Bernardita Ojeda, director at Pájaro, and Antonia Herrera and Mari Soto Aguilar, directors at Punkrobot, who have been leading the way for some time. Followed by younger generations who, starting at a steady pace, develop their own projects by way of directing, such as Fernanda Frick, Alejandra Jaramillo and Bernardita Pasten. There are also a number of women that have shown talent and professionalism in other areas, such as executive production, script, storyboard, concept art, production design and animation.
The time we are living in not only needs stories from women, but also from the dissidences, from migration, from those who come from non-privileged origins and from children. Let’s listen to these new voices to achieve new purposes, because we cannot remain feeling as comfortable as we have to this day. We are facing a big-magnitude, sociological earthquake and we must wake up.
An important part of this awakening is to stop resisting the obvious sociocultural inequality with a gender perspective, to recognize the damage caused by the historically ambitious patriarchal visions, which have taken a toll on the animation professionals, and above all, to fearlessly confront the cases of all kinds of sexual abuse in our sector until they are completely eliminated, until it is not necessary to protect ourselves and until our work is healthy.
In ten years, we have taken giant leaps as a sector, reducing all kinds of gaps, so, reframing and opening our work to new voices seems to be the key to plan the next decades and renew the role of women in the history of Chilean animation.
