Academy member and Portuguese animation director, Regina Pessoa at MIFF

"I draw images of my film by myself because they reflect my own visualization"

Member of Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Science, Los Angeles (AMPAS), and Portuguese animation director, Regina Pessoa gave an outstanding lecture about an interesting topic on animated films, which connect people across the universe very easily. Maintaining a balance between the universal connection and individual voice is her core strength in the films she makes.

Born in 1969 in Coimbra, a small village in Portugal, where there was no TV or theatres at that time, Regina Pessoa couldn’t receive any formal education on the creation of moving images. However, curiosity, enthusiasm and mysteries around life made her animation senses strong. Her films have won prestigious accolades along with grand premieres at the film festivals like Annecy International Animation Festival in 2006. In 2018, she became a member of Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Science, Los Angeles.

Pessoa was open about her influences coming straight from her personal life which is why the images are exclusively drawn by herself and not by any artist or by computers software’s which is why they are unparalleled.

Regina shared with the audience about her first film, ‘The Night’, which she made using unique techniques of animated engraving on plaster plates. Pessoa has been practicing this now for a long time and became the pioneer of using varieties of engraving techniques and made remarkable films like ‘Tragic Story with a Happy Ending’ (2005), ‘Kali the Little Vampire’ (2012), ‘Uncle Thomas: Accounting for the Days’ (2019) and many more.