When I was first given the brief for the “World Animation” presentation, I automatically thought of a show that I grew up watching called “Amigos do Gaspar” from João Paulo Seara Cardoso. He was a prominent Portuguese puppeteer who started his career creating hand puppet animation shows for TV in collaboration with the musician Sérgio Godinho and Jorge Constante Pereira, who wrote and composed the score for the episodes. Together they created “A Árvore dos Patafúrdios” (1985)(The Patafúrdios’ Tree), “Amigos do Gaspar” (1986-89)(Gaspar’s Friends), “Mópi” (1990) and “No tempo dos Afonsinhos” (1993)(Out of the Ark ). What these shows lacked in production value, they made up for with beautifully written characters singing joyful songs, that would teach children subversive anarchist lessons about social awareness.

It made me wonder about the political and cultural context of that time and how much animation has changed since then. After researching more about Portuguese animation’s history, I realized that it was pointless to talk exclusively about Seara Cardoso, when the relevance of his work is not related to his animation, but to the subversive political messages that his shows had.

Throughout my research, I came across Abi Feijó’s work which is incredibly experimental in the animation techniques that he uses. There’s almost a handcrafted aspect to his work that was very refreshing and innovative in the Portuguese animation industry. But similarly to Seara Cardoso’s TV shows, Abi’s independent short films also had a very strong political and civic awareness. Both used their craft to make a political statement, instead of using it as a commercial tool.

This was only possible after the 25th of April’s revolution in 1974, where artists were able to express their political views for the first time, especially communist, socialist and progressive ideals. The only political animation that existed before then was “O Pesadelo de António Maria” (António Maria’s nightmare), which was potentially the first Portuguese animation ever made, directed by Joaquim Guerreiro in 1923 – three years before the beginning of the Portuguese fascist National Dictatorship. It made me think how differently Portuguese animation would have evolved if the dictatorship hadn’t happened.