AnimaPIX, the festival for the child in all of us, from illustrated books to animated films, is back in December at the Madalena Auditorium Library.

Celebrating ten years since its first edition, which took place in schools on the island of Pico, AnimaPIX highlights the best of Portuguese animation and welcomes back its patron, the most awarded Portuguese artist in the world, Regina Pessoa.

Regina Pessoa is the author of the illustration on the poster marking the festival’s 10th anniversary. She began working in animation in 1992, as an animator for Abi Feijó’s films, and to date has authored four films, which have gained international recognition, with over 150 awards at major festivals and events worldwide (Annecy, Annie Awards, Hiroshima, nominations for the Cartoon d’Or, nomination for the European Film Award, appearances on the Oscar shortlist). All of them are included in the National Film Plan and are studied by children and young people in Portuguese schools. Regina Pessoa is an undisputed reference in Portuguese animation and was recently recognized at Animac’ 2021 as one of the top three filmmakers worldwide of the last 25 years.

“Being the patron of AnimaPIX is a privilege, an honor, a gift that I embrace with all my heart,” says Regina Pessoa. “There are many film festivals. Those where artistic and human sharing is greatest are almost always animation festivals. And among these, the smaller the better, as the experience is more intense and richer because it allows for closer and more sincere contact with this small group of people in a short space of time.”

Regina Pessoa has already participated in AnimaPIX, always accompanied by her partner Abi Feijó, both recipients of the MiratecArts Atlante Award. The artist admits that “it is often in these small, remote places that we, as artists, encounter true cultural activism and devotion to a cause by people who, giving up almost everything, devote themselves to promoting and encouraging artistic practices among small, isolated populations that the central authorities ignore and the local authorities forget is their duty. And I know of no more relevant case of this cultural activism than Terry Costa, who created AnimaPIX, among other festivals he directs, on the isolated and beautiful island of Pico, allowing children and the local population to experience, sometimes for the first time in their lives, the essential collective and ancestral experience of watching cinema, rays of light, in a room, in the darkness.”

The AnimaPIX program will soon be available on the official website of the promoting association, miratecarts.com, which took advantage of International Animation Day, October 28, to release this note and encourage people to mark their calendars for December 1-7, 2025, to celebrate 10 years of AnimaPIX on Portugal’s highest island and mountain.

We thank the Luso-American Education Foundation for its support.