THE HOME OF ANIMATION

DogHead Animation Apulia, set up by the regional Film Commission, hosted the making of the second season of Trulli Tales, the extraordinarily successful animated series created by Fiorella and Maria Elena Congedo

An enchanted kingdom at the foot of an ancient olive-grove where four friends, Ring, Zip, Stella and Sun prepare the recipes in Grandma Trulli’s magic cookbook, thwarting the sinister plans of the comical, bungling Copperpot. The charm of The adventures of Trullalleri , the subtitle of the successful animated series Trulli Tales, the second season of which is currently being broadcast on Rai (Rai Yoyo, and RaiPlay), lies in the skill with which the creators, Apulians Fiorella and Maria Elena Congedo, reinterpret their roots in a fantastic key: the traditions of a territory told through the food which expresses the passions and care of those places.

“Our relationship with food is established at a very young age and we wanted to give children a tool that would arouse their curiosity in a healthy balanced diet like the Mediterranean one”, says Maria Elena Congedo. “We have added these elements to a place that is magical in itself: Alberobello, an icon of Apulia, which today is actually inhabited by many foreigners, some of whom we have met, special and creative people who inspired our construction of this world.”

The first season of Trulli Tales, broadcast in 2017, has been distributed in 177 territories, translated into 21 languages, pre-purchased by Disney in 113 countries and won the Prix Gémeaux (the Canadian Emmy) for “best animation series” in the world in 2018.

It is a fantasy story firmly rooted in a local context which is confirmed as a winning formula. In 2019 the sisters won the Los Angeles Italian Creativity Award for the series: “in recognition for having exported Apulia and Italy to the world which made us very proud because it normally goes to fictional movies.”

The great potential of animation in valorizing the stories and professional expertise of a territory, to which an increasing number of Italian regions are giving importance and space, is certainly one of the strategic points of the Apulia Film Commission which supports the sector through a series of specific measures.

One example is the path of Congedo CulturArte, the Congedo sisters’ production company which obtained €28,000 of funding for the development of the second season of the series (Apulia Development Film Fund), and a contribution to the production of the same (Apulia Film Fund) of € 685,492, against an estimated expenditure in Apulia of around € 1,490,200.

In this way the film commission became part of the production structure that includes Rai Kids and Fandango. The international distribution is entrusted to the Canadian company Boat Rocker.

That’s not all: the second season was made in the new DogHead Animation Apulia, the Apulian arm of DogHead Animation, Movimenti Production’s 2D animation studio, a leader in Italy with its main headquarters in Florence, part of the Apulia Film House project, supported by the Apulia Film Commission.

Announcement realized within the sphere of “Promuovere il cinema e i suoi luoghiPromoting cinema and its places”, a speech by the Apulia Film Commission and Regione Puglia - Dipartimento Turismo, Economia della Cultura e Valorizzazione del Territorio [Department of Tourism, Economics of Culture and Valorization of the Territory], financed with the resources of the Patto per la Puglia FSC 2014-2020.

The head office, located in the setting of the historic former Palazzo del Mezzogiorno, Pavilion 81 of the Fiera del Levante in Bari, is the ‘new home’ to which lots of Apulian animators and riggers who were working outside the region have returned. A team of artists led by the Studio Head, Marcello Maggi, which is working on a series of new national and international productions.

At the same time, within the perspective of mutual contamination and confidence in the talents to be found in the region, DogHead Apulia has already launched training initiatives like the aniMADE intensive animation workshop in Apulia, or the collaboration with the Scuola di Fumetto, Disegno e Illustrazione Grafite [School of Cartoon, Graphite Drawing and Illustration].

The latter is realized in partnership with the local production house - Sattva Film di Michele Fasano - which has already made and is currently working on numerous animation movies, including the recent Metamorphosis, written and directed by Fasano himself and the multi award winning medium length feature Mani Rosse, directed by Francesco Filippi. Both movies benefitted from the Apulia Film Fund.

This systemization is destined to make animation one of the cornerstones of the Apulia Film Commission and of audiovisuals in Apulia. “The launch of an important production unit by one of the main entities of the animation sector in Apulia and the hospitality of tens of young animators for long periods of work on innovative products and projects can only be good for the emerging Apulian animation system and make sure it is even more strongly rooted in our territory” say the new president, Annamaria Tosto, and the director general Antonio Parente.