“We are trying to seek support from Portuguese institutions, from the Portuguese State, at the same time that we are asking for regional support that will allow us to invest more in the dissemination of the film during the next month and a half”, said Bruno Caetano.Producer Bruno Caetano and director João Gonzalez will soon be leaving for Los Angeles, California, to work on promoting “Ice Merchants”, which is nominated for the Annie animation film awards and for the Oscars. Oscars, the situation is unprecedented; for the first time a Portuguese-made film is nominated, in this case in the Best Animation Short Film category. produced by the Portuguese cooperative Cola Animation, in co-production with France and the United Kingdom. The film had a budget of around 100,000 euros and had international distribution by Agência da Curta-Metragem, which placed it in festivals that the producers considered important for their career. out of doors.Bruno Caetano explained that the distribution of the film in North America was the responsibility of The New Yorker magazine and a campaign manager was also hired to, within the rules imposed by the Academy of Oscars, publicize “Ice Merchants”. .“Now we have reached this final stage of the nomination and we are in a bit of a tricky position. We are a non-profit cooperative, we are not a profitable company, we are fighting giants, like David against Goliath, in which we do not have the cash to keep up with the situation we are in”, lamented Bruno Caetano. around 11,000 euros are spent on publicity and it takes, “at an Olympic minimum”, around 30,000 euros, “including air tickets and accommodation” to be in Los Angeles promoting the film.“Since this is such a historic thing , I thought we would have some support from some institutions, more immediate. It’s not that there’s no interest, but the structure is set up in a way that you can’t speed things up. We are treading a path that has never been trodden before. If it had already happened in the past, everything would be faster”, said Bruno Caetano. Knowing that the process is competitive, that there are Oscar candidates with “very deep pockets”, Bruno Caetano considers the nomination very positive, because it motivates interest and allows publicity. of the work of both the production company and João Gonzalez’s cinema. “What return we will have in the long term, I really have no idea. The only thing that surprises me is how Portuguese talent hasn’t gotten there yet [à vitória nos Óscares]. In terms of animation we have people with incredible talent with extreme work and quality, we were the first now, we could have been before. And it would have been deserved”, he opined. This year, another unprecedented situation also happened, in which, for the first time, three short films – all of them with several awards – reached the finalist stage for an Oscar nomination: “Ice Merchants ”, “The garbage man”, by Laura Gonçalves, “The lone wolf”, by Filipe Melo. Previously, Regina Pessoa had already been among the finalists for an Oscar nomination with the short films “Tragic Story with Happy Ending ” (2005) and “Tio Tomás, A Contabilidade dos Dias” (2019), but was never nominated. “Portuguese animation is on top of the world! There are few countries that have animation films with so many awards in so many first-rate festivals. How did we, as the poorest relative, manage to do this? Sometimes with a lot of effort”, he acknowledged.Currently, animation film production in Portugal relies mainly on financial support from the Instituto do Cinema e do Audiovisual (ICA) and on funding through co-productions with other countries. If we manage to have better support at ICA, we will be able to do more and better. And the people who work in animation are going to be able to live better and not survive on minimum wages and stuff like that. It would be very interesting if this visibility [da nomeação para os Óscares] help in some way in this sense”, defended the producer.The ceremony of the 95th edition of the Oscars is scheduled for March 12 in Los Angeles, California. also named “The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse” by Charlie Mackesy and Matthew Freud, “The Flying Sailor” by Amanda Forbis and Wendy Tilby, “My Year of Dicks” by Sara Gunnarsdóttir, and “An Ostrich Told Me the World Is Fake and I Think I Believe It” by Lachlan Pendragon.