Animaphix 2022 presents the Award in homage to Giannalberto Bendazzi

An annual award for the best Italian animated short film in competition at the Animaphix Film Festival will be named in memory of Giannalberto Bendazzi (Ravenna 1946 – Genoa 2021), who recently passed away.

Journalist and film critic, among the most important experts of animation cinema in the world, as well as holder of numerous professorships in the History of Animation Cinema all over the world and among the founding members of the Society for Animation Studies, an international organization born in 1987, dedicated to the study of the history and theory of animation, Bendazzi was the author of over 30 books on the subject, including the monumental Animation – A World History. However, the discovery to which Bendazzi’s name is most closely linked is that of Quirino Cristiani, an Argentine animator, Italian by birth, and author of what is now considered to be the first animated feature film in the world, El Apostol, screened 20 years before Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. To his story, the scholar dedicated the essay The man who anticipated Disney, released in 2007 by Tunué.

Giannalberto was also a close friend of Animaphix, as well as president of the Scientific Committee, which over the last few years has accompanied the success of the Festival. “For some time, we have been wondering how to honour him in the way he deserves, without limiting ourselves to organizing a series of events limited in time, to retrace his career and role in spreading the sector” – declares the director of Animaphix, Rosalba Colla -. “We therefore thought that the best way to do this was to make him the protagonist of something that was capable of supporting Italian authors and their work. We will start -from the next edition, establishing the Giannalberto Bendazzi National Award, which we will award to the most representative short film among those which will make up the selection of Animaphix International Animated Film Festival 2022. Shortly, we will tell you about the important news that will characterize our next edition. Always in the name of the teachings that Giannalberto was able to leave us “.