The Cántaro Institute was founded in 2020, with the twofold purpose of recovering the riches of Spanish Protestantism for the renewal and edification of the contemporary church, and advancing the comprehensive Christian philosophy of life for the religious reformation of the Western and Ibero-American world. Over the past two years, we have been working diligently behind the scenes to produce and publish both in-print and digital material that fulfills our twofold purpose. We have been a bit quiet, however, for the past six months, because we have been working on two special projects, one literary and one virtual, the latter of which we are now ready to announce to the public. For those who have been following our Spanish-version of our site, you will be familiar with our first foray into producing online video content with the Conferencia del Oso. This was markedly different from our regularly posted videos because this was a LIVE conference. While our initial hope had been to host such an event in person, the COVID pandemic allowed us the time and the space to innovate, and we discovered something special along the way. The Conferencia del Oso 2021 has been picked up by the streaming service Answers.TV, allowing us to reach a broader international audience of Spanish-speakers. And because of the warm reception it received, we began to ponder about how else we can further our Institute’s mission by means of original video content.
While we have had all sorts of ideas since the beginning of the pandemic, it was our most ambitious idea that took to the races thanks to the generous giving of our dedicated and devoted supporters. In February 2021, we re-published Deborah Alcock’s The Spanish Brothers – a story that takes place during the Spanish reformation of the 16th century – as a new edition with a foreword by our founding director, Steven R. Martins, and historical/biographical notes pertaining to the Spanish reformation. The Spanish Brothers is the first volume in our line of Cántaro Classics. Because Alcock’s 1871 publication has been lost to obscurity for so many, and lines up so well with the spirit and intent of what the Cántaro Institute seeks to accomplish, we decided to set out and explore the possibility of adapting the story into an animated series. This allows us to not only reach the general audience, but to reach and educate the whole family, children included.
At present, there is still a long way to go, but we are pleased to announce that we had received sufficient funding in order to greenlight the first phase of this project: a 5-minute short film titled The Spanish Brothers. This short film will serve as (i) an introduction to the story contained in Alcock’s publication, and also (ii) as a pitch for the fundraising of future phases, which altogether covers a total of five 28-minute episodes.
Character Line-Up: The Spanish Brothers (Venturia Animation Studios)
The first question that might come to mind is, Who will be producing the 5-minute short film? And any future installments (if there are any)? No one at the Cántaro Institute has experience with animation, it is well foreign to any of our associates’ expertise. For this reason, we looked outside of our own organization and made several inquiries. Most of the animation studios we contacted were uninterested in producing anything with remotely religious “Christian” content, but we found one. Cántaro Institute has contracted Venturia Animation Studios, based in Bogota, Colombia, to produce the 5-minute short film The Spanish Brothers. We are excited to be working with Juan M. Urbina, animation director and producer of Netflix’s Legend Quest, Tunka, and Don Quixote in Space, as well as the rest of the Venturia Animation team. Our desire to see a 2D animated film in an art style similar to Dreamworks’ The Road to El Dorado (2000) and The Prince of Egypt (1998) resonated well with Urbina, and we are blessed to be working with a team skilled in such artwork.
While it was our hope to be able to release this short film in time for the 504th protestant reformation anniversary on October 31st, 2021, the work required on the audio and sound special effects require more time. We are looking at a February release date. Also, at the moment, due to budgetary limitations, we are only able to produce this short film in English, but we hope to make it available in Spanish in the future. As for the future phases of this animated project, we are not able to announce any more details at this time as we continue our contract talks with an interested crowd-funding streaming service based in the United States. Whether the full vision for this project will be realized or not is ultimately in the hands of God, but we will be diligent to exhaust every avenue in faith. Our intention is ultimately to bring awareness to what God was doing in 16th century Spain, what He is still doing today, and to testify of the biblical gospel through this creative medium. If you would like to help support this cause, you can donate to the Cántaro Institute, keep us in prayer, and share the short film all over social media networks once we make it available.
If we believe we can redeem the arts, this is certainly one way of doing that.