Down Argentine Way

At the bottom of South America, there's a fledgling animation industry happening in fits and starts.

Despite a dearth of funding, Argentina’s animation industry remains a leader in Latin America and a pioneer of artistic innovation, as demonstrated by the Argentine entries in two festivals exhibiting the best of the craft. ...

Creativity, artistic mastery and low production costs are Argentina’s main competitive advantages in the field, to which Federico Moreno, head of producer Luty, would add: “the great capacity to adapt to unconventional situations and unforeseen events.” ...

Growth in Argentina’s animation industry is fueled by international demand for material for advertising, feature films and television series, but also by the incipient market for new technologies.

Virtual reality and transmedia storytelling open new opportunities for the production of content at costs, according to Manfredi, as much as 40 percent lower than in Europe or the United States. ...

But domestic production of animated feature films remains meager. ...

South America and Argentina are discovering what other continents have learned before them: It's not enough to have an inexpensive pipeline. You must also have product that global audiences want to see. Otherwise all you have is inexpensive shorts and features that nobody looks at, and so they still lose money.