6, 7, 10, 11 and 12 nov | All Day | Piscina Solário Atlântico
This year, CINANIMA returns as a meeting place for artistic creation and education. Under the theme ‘Memory: the future of the past’, the festival reinforces its educational aspect in 2025 with an artistic residency in animation, involving around 170 students and teachers from five municipalities. The proposal is an exercise in reflection on the region’s cinematographic heritage through the collective creation of animated films.
The new edition of the Artistic Workshop in Animation has three components: a six-hour accredited teacher training course for teachers of participating classes; mentoring of students by the team of trainers in schools; and a five-day residency in Espinho, which includes the finalisation of projects, post-production and viewing of films from this year’s festival programme. In total, there are 30 hours per class, from September to November, as nine classes are participating, for a total of 270 hours.
In these film education initiatives: watching, making and thinking about animated films, the aim is to use animated films as an artistic practice and a means of building knowledge, questioning the world and acquiring skills, as well as promoting creativity and coordination between different educational disciplines through the production of animated images.
This year, the artistic residency shares a common theme: the memory of old cinema venues. Each group of three classes from three different schools is producing a film about the history of a local cinema. The project thus brings to life the memory of three iconic venues: the now defunct Cine-Teatro S. Pedro in Espinho, the Cinema Imperador in S. João da Madeira (now converted into the Casa da Criatividade), and the resilient Cinema Trindade in Porto, which is still in full operation.
Working on the theme of the memory of these cinemas for the production of the films has led to study visits to the locations and presentation sessions, such as the session at FACE on the memory of cinemas in Espinho, particularly S. Pedro, led by historian Armando Bouçon, without excluding the use of other research sources. In addition, there is collective and collaborative work to be done at the Artist Residency: finalisation of the films and post-production. The final product will be presented at the closing session of CINANIMA on 15 November.
The choice of these venues is not random. On the one hand, it fits in with the overall theme of the festival. On the other hand, it makes sense for the younger generations to be exposed to cinema venues from different angles that they may wish to address in their productions: historical, architectural, the art of cinema, and others… The perspectives are manifold. It should be noted that the cinemas in question had three different outcomes: extinction, in the case of Espinho; conversion, in São João da Madeira; and resistance (Trindade).
The artistic team responsible for mentoring the students consists of five young trainers specialising in animated film, under the artistic coordination of João Católico.
Some of the teachers involved are already regular contributors to this type of activity, while others are new participants, but all are distinguished by their motivation, commitment, curiosity and desire to learn and do.
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