and France. Other noted Egyptian animators were Noshi Iskandar and a woman filmmaker,
Mona Abo El Nasr.
Mongi Sancho, Nacer Khemir, and Samir Besbes all made animated films in Tunisia.
Mahjoub Zouhair produced films and twelve episodes of the TV series Les Aventures de
Hatem, le courageux cavalier Zlass.In Algeria, the father of animation there, Mohamed
Aram, made his first film in 1963. He taught himself to animate and made his own equip-
ment. In 1964 he formed a team at Centre National du Cinema. He founded his own studio
in 1976 and made films like H’Mimo et les allumettes,L’olivier justicier,Adrar, and Sema.In
Niger Moustapha Alassane drew directly on film stock because he lacked equipment. Many
of his films were made during the 1960s and 1970s. In Liberia, after television was born,
Jefferson Abruzi Zeon led a department of graphic arts at the Liberian Broadcasting
System and made several short films. In Ghana Alex Bannerman made Windfall and
Don’t Waste Water. The National Film and Television Institute made a handful of animated
films during the 1980s. In Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo), Alexandre
Vandenheuvel and Roger Tamar made seven films between 1951 and 1956. They were broad-
cast for some time on Zaire Television. Jean-Michel Ndjaie Wooto Kibushi and Mohamed
Soudani (who lived in Switzerland but was from Zaire) also made films. In 2003 Roger
Hawkin’s The Legend of the Sky Kingdom(Zimbabwe), made with found objects, was
shown at Annecy. Animators were working on films or in TV all over Africa—in Senegal,
Ivory Coast (for years Ivory Coast artists worked abroad, not in their home country),
Togo, Burkina, Mali, Burundi, Zambia, Mozambique, and Mauritius as well.
Animation in South America, Central America, and Mexico
In 1916 producer Federico Valle wanted a one-minute political satire drawn for his news-
reel in Argentina, so he hired twenty-year-old Quirino Cristiani, a caricaturist, to do the job.
It was so successful that Valle made a full-length political satire El Apóstoland released it
in 1917. Alfonso de Laferrère wrote the text of this first animated feature made anywhere.
Cristiani made more films, including Peludópolis, the world’s first animated sound feature,
released in 1931. Andrés Ducaud made other films for Valle. Both Juan Oliva and Dante
Quinterno produced animation with limited success in the 1930s and 1940s. José M. Burone
Bruché made films in the 1940s; Victor Iturralde Rúa, José Arcuri, and Rodolfo Julio Bardi
made avant-garde films in the 1950s; and Carlos Gonzáles Groppa made puppet films. In
the 1960s and 1970s as many as 450 animated advertising minutes were produced a year in
Argentina. Then animator Manuel García founded a publishing and TV production empire
in the 1960s, producing many animated TV series. In the 1970s Jorge “Catú” Martin directed
more than 200 animated shorts. And the Patagonik Film Group in Buenos Aires produced
the film Patoruzito, distributed in 2004.
In Chile Grafilms was founded in 1978 by Alvaro Arce and Enrique Bustamante. The
company made miniseries and commercials and trained a generation of animators until 1984.
Cineanimadores produced the first Chilean animated feature film,Ogu y Mampato en Rapa
Nui, released in 2002. At Arce Studios and EMU Films Alvaro Arce and Ricardo
351990Beauty and the Beast, the first animated feature to be
nominated for an Academy Award, is released.