Foosball | STASH MAGAZINE

Argentina Tackles the World Stage with “FOOSBALL”

After winning the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 2009 with his thriller “The Secret in Their Eyes”, Argentine director Juan José Campanella launched his first animated film, “Foosball”: budgeted at US$20M the soccer-centric action comedy is the most expensive domestic feature ever produced in Argentina. Released in 2013, the film will screen internationally in 70 countries distributed by Universal Pictures.

Foosball trailer:

Inspired in Argentine writer Roberto Fontanarrosa’s tale “Memories of a Right Wing”, the film tells the story of Amadeo, a sensitive boy who lives in an anonymous town and plays foosball better than anyone. His simple routine falls apart when the cockiest boy in town decides to face him. In order to beat him, Amadeo must team up with the foosball players, who come to life and abandon their foosball table for the first time. This plot could be very well used as a metaphor for Latin American animation: a young industry who seeks to compete against the big boys using talent and fellowship.

Campanella’s original idea was to combine talent from the live action and Animation industries. That combination presented challenges both technical and artistic, especially at the moment of creating the sets of the film, which were designed by art directors Nelson Luty and Mariano Epelbaum.

Co-writer and EP Gastón Gorali: “Since all the sets were drawn by hand, they looked very magical, but when they were modeled in 3D, it all lost a bit of magic and plasticity. The main challenge was to maintain that plasticity of the original drawing.”

To create the film, Campanella’s production company 100 Bares Producciones partnered with Catmandu Entertainment, Plural Jempsa, Jorge Estrada Mora Producciones and Atresmedia Cine, gathering efforts from Argentina and Spain, and now he’s given birth to a whole new company named Mundoloco CGI which is currently working on a sequel. HP, Autodesk and Microsoft supported the film and the team involved more than 400 professionals from 15 different countries.

Direction: Juan José Campanella
Script: Juan José Campanella, Eduardo Sacheri, Gastón Gorali
Production: Jorge Estrada, Ricardo Freixá, Roberto Schroeder, Modesto Rubio, Carlos Benito, Mikel Lejarza, Mercedes Gamero
Executive Production: Juan José Campanella, Gastón Gorali, Diego Rosner, Ivan Kozicki, Gustavo Ferrada
Original Music: Emilio Kauderer
Direction of Photograpy: Felix Monti
Voices: Pablo Rago, Horacio Fontova, Fabian Giaonla, David Masajnik, Miguel Angel Rodriguez, Lucia Maciel, Coco Sily, Diego Ramos

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