A special present
Lili, Minhoca and Zé Gordo, also known as "the Pestinhas", decide to surprise their friend Rosita by decorating the school she attends for the neighbourhood's annual Christmas dinner. They had not counted, however, on having to deal with Fedinho, a jealous and envious boy determined to spoil the party. This animated short was shown at this year's Cannes Film Festival, in the Young African Talents section, launched in 2019.
The director, Nildo Essá, a self-taught architect in the seventh art, with proven experience in animated film, tells us:
"Over the years, after consuming a lot of material from abroad and being passionate about cartoon characters in general, we felt the need to see something local, African, that would allow people to identify with what they see on screen. Until then there were no animated Mozambican characters with whom we could identify. The Cannes Film Festival is one of the biggest and most important festivals in the film world, and also one of the most coveted, and of course we felt honoured to have had the opportunity to show what we have to offer. It was a feeling of great pride. After all, what we managed to do, even without any local help, can be compared with international productions. Unfortunately I had to decline the invitation to take part in person because of the demands imposed by the pandemic. I could only follow the event remotely, online. Despite that, I can say that it was very good. It is just that there is always a lack of contact and physical interaction with other professionals in the field.
We hope to present more adventures of the Pestinhas in the near future, but in this moment of "pause" we have decided to put our efforts into continuing our most ambitious and longest project, the first national animated feature film. It has been an arduous and rather painful path and, once again, without local help. Even so, we hope it will have a satisfying end."
