Not the clearest in this scan, but I drew a map of Spain showing the locations of schools, festivals and companies I found along my research and of which more information can be found in the rest of this blog.

Perro Verde films
A Spanish audiovisual production company situated in Galicia. It is directed by Manuel Cristóbal and specialized in financing, animation, new technologies and marketing. The company produced four feature films since 2007. One of them is the Oscar nominated animated feature Arrugas.
http://www.perroverdefilms.com/

Fernando Trueba Producciones 

Film company by director Fernando Trueba, who for example directed the successful animation feature Chico & Rita. Situated in Madrid.http://www.fernandotrueba.com/home.asp 

A little bit more about the recent Spanish animation film that was nominated for an oscar and won several other awards.

The story of the film is about Chico, a young piano player with big dreams. Rita is a beautiful singer with an extraordinary voice. Music and romantic desire unites them, but their journey - in the tradition of the Latin ballad, the bolero - brings heartache and torment.

The film is set in backdrops of Havana, New York, Las Vegas, Hollywood and Paris. It was produced by Fernando Trueba Producciones, Estudio Mariscal and Magic light productions.

For trailer see below.

I just found out about 'Diboos'. Diboos is the Spanish federation of association of animation, under whose aegis about 80% of all Spanish animation is produced. Animation companies are member of the federation.

Diboos aims to join the forces of Spanish animation companies. It defends the role of animation in the country, both cultural and as a stable industry.
http://www.diboos.com/ 

I found a post on an animation website mentioning how several Spanish animation films, shorts and feature films were selected for Oscars in 2011. Quite an achievement, as apart from America there are few countries who get more then one film on this list.

In 2011 it were the feature films Chico & Rita and Arrugas. Two years earlier it were Planet 51 and El lince perdido (the lost lynx). Then in 2011 also the three short films birdboy, vicenta and Daisy Cutter were nominated for oscars. Even more remarkable is the fact that Chico & Rita and Arrugas were both aimed at an adult audience, where animated films often are a 'tough sell'. According to Spanish producer Manuel Cristóbal 'the borders for animation have blown up' and calls animation a 'strategic sector with a brilliant future'.

The full artice with more details about the international success of the Spanish animation industry can be found here: http://www.cartoonbrew.com/biz/spanish-animation-chico-rita-goes-after-oscars-international-market.html

Somewhere this year the first Spanish stop motion feature film 'O apostolo' should be released. The film is shot in 3d. The story is about 'a convict that escapes imprisonment and set out to recover his loot when he encounters a group of devious old people and all hell breaks loose.' I found this film and got rather excited seeing the trailer, probably just a day before we had to pick a country to do our research for for this assignment and that made me choose Spain. Only to find out later that this is quite a unique project in Spain, where the main aim in animation so far seems to be at computer animation. An area that has less of my interest.
The project has been crowdfunded and is in that way the first Spanish crowdfunded film project that will be shown in the cinemas. It seems like it is an independent production and not part of a yet existing animation company. The model making and cinematography of the films looks incredible and I really hope the film will make it internationally and will be available to view outside of Spain in some way. Also interesting to keep an eye on what the makers of the film maybe plan to produce in the future...

Link to the official website of the film: http://www.oapostolo.es/

Dygra films
Dygra films is a computer animation studio located in A Coruña, SPain. It was founded in 1987 as a graphic design studio and started off producing interactive cd-rom titles. They produced their first feature CG film in 2001, 'the living forest'. Other feature films include 'Midsummer dream', 'spirit of the forest' and 'Holy night'. The living forest claims to be the first European 3d animated film. The company is always searching for innovative solutions and has come up with interactive touch screen games already in 1991 and game simulators in 1996. Their newest film 'in search of oniria' should be released this year.

Filmax AnimationFilmax animation produces and co-produces animated feature films with international connections. The main studio is situated in Barcelona and the CG studio is situated in Santiago de Compostela. Filmax animation belongs to filmax entertainment group. They develop both their own projects and get involved in outside projects. They can provide 3d animation services from the Bren Entertainment studio in Santiago de Compostela and otherwise traditional and digital 2D and motion capture. Some productions the studio has been involved with are 'El Cid the Legend' (Joseph Pozo) and P3K Pinocchio 3000 (Daniel Robichaud), which was coproduced with Cinecroupe (Canada) and Animakids (France). Another collaboration film project between Filmax animation and Animakids is 'Nocturna', 2007.

In this post I have tried to gather some information about animation schools and courses in Spain. I noticed that most of the courses have their main aim at computer animation.
I found a whole list of animation schools, it is more difficult to find out which schools specifically have a good reputation. Some of the descriptions seem to lack professionalism and some links are not working.
I have selected a range of different schools, that were standing out in some way to me, both positive and negative.

Most schools seem to be based in either Madrid, Barcelona or Granada.

9Zeros
9Zeros is an animation school in Barcelona. It is a private centre of information technology education specialising in a wide range of modern animation techniques.All the animation techniques (2d, stop motion, 3d) are taught, with the objective to give the students technique and conceptual basis to be able to use animation as an artistic tool.
They have a website as well: http://www.9zeros.com/

3d2 Centro de Animaci
In some descriptions of schools in this database the English is very poor. And a certain '3D2 Centro de Animaci' has interesting requirements and a somehow narrow minded philosophy: entry requirements are 'desire and something of money' and the philosophy is written down as the following: 'We wanna to support to anybody student to find his own expression way, his hide talent, using the best tool.. Maya.' (http://schools.awn.com/?l&id=19311)


MA ISCA
The Balearic Islands University (UIB) is an international reference training centre for audio visual new techs; specifically traditional and computer animation, tv and film special effects. Teaching since 1990. The centre provides many different specialized short courses ranging from 3d modelling and storyboarding to after effects and photoshop courses.
The website unfortenately only is available in Spanish: http://www.ladat.es/

Animum3dschool
The Animum3dschool is definitely as well a course specializing in 3d computer animation. The description says that the program includes cartooning, character animation, experimental animation and animation history/theory. The website is only available in Spanish, but makes it clear that the focus is only on 3d computer animation. It seems like the school offers a range of specialist courses, of which the 3d character animation course is the only one really about animation. Other courses include architecture and interior design in 3D studio Max, photography, motion graphics & vfx and comic and illustration.
This is the link to the website in Spanish: http://www.animum3d.com/

Septima Ars
Formally the course was called 'Animart', and was an ASIFA recognized Animation and Storyboard school. Now it belongs to Septima Ars, an audio visual school offering a variety of film making courses and degrees. The only odd thing is that I cannot find back any animation course mentioned on the website of the school itself... in the animation school database it mentions the following: the main focus is on character animation, but also other theoretical and practical aspects of film language are taught. The student have access over absolutely professional equipment.
This is the website itself: http://www.septima-ars.com/index.php/english (front page available in English)