Quirino Cristiani

Quirino Cristiani (1955)

Quirino Cristiani (born July 2, 1896 in Santa Giuletta , Italy , † August 2, 1984 in Bernal , Argentina ) was an Italian animated filmmaker and cartoonist . From 1916 he produced numerous animated films , including El Apóstol, the first full- length animated film from 1917 , which, however, has been considered lost since a film studio fire in 1926 .

Life

Cristiani was born in 1896 in the northern Italian village of Santa Giuletta as one of five children of the municipal worker Luigi Cristiani and the housewife Adele Martinotti. After his father was dismissed, he first moved to Argentina alone and then settled with his family in Buenos Aires in 1900 . As a teenager, Cristiani discovered his interest in drawing . The first cartoons appeared in Argentine daily newspapers. Then Cristiani met the producer Federico Valle , who also emigrated from Italy , for whom he created cartoons for newsreels . In 1916, Cristiani created the short animation film La intervención en la provincia de Buenos Aires for the newsreel Actualidades Valle, which addressed the dismissal of the governor of the province of Buenos Aires, Marcelino Ugarte , by President Hipólito Yrigoyen . He had taught himself the animation technique of flat-figure film with cut-out templates by studying Émile Cohl's films from Valles possession. Since the film was very well received by the audience, Cristiani tackled an ambitious project: the first full- length animated film .

El Apóstol was created from 58,000 individual images and was 70 minutes long. He again thematized the politics of the Argentine President Hipólito Yrigoyen. The President isempoweredby the power of the god Jupiter to throw lightning bolts, causing the immoral and corrupt city of Buenos Aires to go up in flames. The film premiered on November 9, 1917 in selected Argentine cinemas. The reviews were very positive and the film was also well received by the audience. All known copies of the film were destroyed in a fire in Federico Valles' film studio in 1926.

In 1918, with Sin dejar rastros, Cristiani's second full-length animated film was made, this time dealing with the Luxburg affair , in which the German ambassador to Argentina, Karl von Luxburg , had demanded the sinking of Argentine merchant ships by German submarines. This time the film was not reviewed in the press and was even confiscated for “diplomatic reasons”. In order to secure his livelihood for his family of four, Cristiani turned back to the creation of caricatures. In addition, he showed films and advertisements with a mobile cinema, which was initially very successful, but was then stopped by the authorities as an interference with road traffic. In 1923, two films were made about the fights of the heavyweight boxer Luis Firpo, who is popular in Argentina, against Jack Dempsey and Bill Brennan . The following year, Cristiani produced Uruguayos Forever, a film that portrayed the overwhelming success of the Uruguayan national soccer team at the soccer tournament of the 1924 Summer Olympics . Humberto de Garufa was inspired by the state visit of the Italian Crown Prince Umberto II . In 1925 the short films Gastronomía and Rhinoplastia were made . From 1927 Cristiani was head of public relations for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in Argentina. At the same time he founded the Cristiani Studios, in which animated commercials were created.

From 1929 onwards, Cristiani worked on his third animated feature film, Peludópolis , which should again be dedicated to President Hipólito Irigoyen's politics. The 80 minute long film was the first animated film with sound . It had its premiere in September 1931. Irigoyen had already been overthrown the year before after a military coup. Although Cristiani had partly taken these developments into account in the film, the film no longer achieved the desired effect with the audience. When Irigoyen died in July 1933, Cristiani stopped showing the film completely. Since the project turned out to be a financial fiasco and the cartoons by Walt Disney reached an ever larger audience in Argentina , Cristiani withdrew from producing his own films.

Over the next few years he translated and subtitled foreign films in his Cristiani Studios. At the end of the 1930s, the author Constancio C. Vigil contacted him to ask him to create short animated films based on his stories. The first film was El Mono relojero in 1938 . Despite good audience reactions, Vigil didn't want to make any more films after that. Due to numerous orders for the subtitling of films, Cristiani was only able to make two other short films, Entre pitos y flautas (1941) and Carbonada , which, however, could no longer build on earlier successes. In 1941 Cristiani met Walt Disney on his trip to South America and was able to show him some of his films. A collaboration did not come about, but Cristiani recommended Disney the illustrator Florencio Molina Campos , who later worked as a creative consultant for Disney.

Cristiani's work including all film copies, negatives, drawings and papers was destroyed in two fires in 1957 and 1961. After that, he completely withdrew from filmmaking. He spent his old age with his family in Bernal . In November 1981, at the invitation of the Provincial Council of Pavia , he was able to visit his birthplace, Santa Giuletta. The only film interview with him was made on this occasion.

He died on August 2, 1984 in Bernal at the age of 88.

Filmography (selection)

Direction, script and animation

• 1916: La intervención en la provincia de Buenos Aires (short film)
• 1917: El Apóstol
• 1918: Sin dejar rastros
• 1923: Firpo-Dempsey (short film)
• 1923: Firpo-Brennan (short film)
• 1924: Uruguayos Forever (short film)
• 1924: Humberto de Garufa (short film)
• 1925: Gastronomía (short film)
• 1925: Rhinoplastia (short film)
• 1931: Peludópolis
• 1941: Entre pitos y flautas (short film)
• 1943: Carbonada (short film)

biography

• Giannalberto Bendazzi : Due volte l'oceano. Vita di Quirino Cristiani, pioneers dell'animazione. La Casa Usher, Florence, 1983.

documentation

• 2007: Quirino Cristiani (documentary, director: Gabriele Zucchelli, 88 minutes)

Web links

• Quirino Cristiani in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Quirino Cristiani in cinenacional.com (Spanish)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q} Giannalberto Bendazzi : Quirino Cristiani, The Untold Story of Argentina's Pioneer Animator . Published in Graffiti, December 1984 issue, ASIFA-Hollywood, translation by Charles Solomon.
2. ^ Quirino Cristiani - The Mystery of the First Animated Movies. Press kit. . In: quirinocristianimovie.com, accessed April 30, 2020.
3. ^ Quirino Cristiani - The Mystery of the First Animated Movies . In: quirinocristianimovie.com, accessed April 30, 2020.