1977: Jimmy Carter was inaugurated President of the United States, Elvis Presley died at his home Graceland, and Star Wars premiered in theatres. Somewhere in between and thousands of miles away in Galicia, Spain, filmmaker Peque Varela was born. Her animated short, which is screening in the Animation Spotlight at the Festival, is named after that momentous year, and tells the story of her life in a vibrant and fast-paced collage of images.

In 1977, animation merges with personal photographs to tell the story of a girl in a conservative community struggling to come to terms with her gender identity. “At some point many of us struggle with our identity and how we fit into society,” Varela said. “The film talks about it from my own experience as a woman breaking social stereotypes in a heterosexual, Catholic, capitalist society and in a very small town where you can never be invisible.”

Varela also included depictions of events that had happened in Galicia during her childhood; memories that had been wedged in her mind after all these years, like oil tankers sinking off the coast of Spain and the area's frequent forest fires. “The process started with [my] sitting by my producer and bringing up memories of certain events or moments in the past where I felt rejection for being myself. That list of events became the script. From there I started associating possible images with these events.”

She also took her whole team on a trip to Galicia so they could understand better where she had come from. “Six of us spent five days shooting, photographing, and recording sound on several locations,” she said. “Then when I got back to school I spent about seven months animating and another three months with the help of two assistants. I worked alongside my producer, editor, cinematographer, sound designer, and composer throughout the process, trying to get everyone involved in the creative process. It was a great time.”

All in all, the process took over a year while she was studying animation at the National Film and Television school in London. “Animation requires a huge amount of patience. It is a lengthy and meticulous process; hence, you have to be very passionate about your idea. 1977 is my first animation of such length—it took us a year to complete this 8 minutes. I had to learn most of the technical aspects during the making [of the film]. I had no concrete plan to execute it so I just kept improvising and trying out new stuff along the way.

“I find animation is the best way of expressing my ideas,” she added. “I decided for this particular story—which is based on memories—that an open approach was the best option. Although animation is perceived as a medium where improvisation is very limited because of the rigid and orthodox production rules, I think that by breaking it one can work in a more inventive and intuitive way. It’s actually not as limited as live action and I enjoy its freedom.”