Quirino Cristiani (Santa Giuletta, Italy, July 2, 1896 - Bernal, Argentina, August 2, 1984) was a caricaturist and director of Argentine animation responsible for the first two animated feature lengths and the first full-length sound animation in the world. In his adolescence, Quirino showed passion for drawing. He made a short course at the Academy of Fine Arts and soon found work drawing cartoons for the newspapers, which at that time published many cartoons and political satires. In 1917 he made the first animated feature film in history, El Apóstol. The film was produced by Valle himself and financed by the owner of the cinem. In 1916, at age 19, he was hired by the Italian Federico Valle (who owned a film studio in Buenos Aires) to draw cartoons and include them in his short film informational films. Given the indication by Valle that he would not admit still images in his films, Cristiani had to devise a way to give movement to his drawings. With these influences was that he developed the techniques of animation, which allowed him to make in 1917 the first animated feature film in history, The Apostle. The film was produced by Valle himself and financed by the owner of the cinema chain (surnamed Franchini) where the film would be screened. For the film 58 thousand drawings2 were used in 35 mm (at a rate of 14 frames per second), 3 in addition to several models that represented public buildings such as the Argentine National Congress, the Buenos Aires Customs Office and the Obras building. Sanitarias de la Nación, besides flooding the streets of the city. In 1918 he made the second feature film, Without Leaving Traces, which referred to an episode that occurred during the First World War, which was still continuing, referring to the sinking of the Monte Protegido schooner by a German submarine that had provoked demonstrations in the country. who advocated the abandonment of neutrality and support for the Allies, and ended with the excuses of the German Empire. The film lasted only one day in theaters, did not have a good acceptance by the public, the press did not mention its existence and was confiscated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which did not want a confrontation against Germany. At that time he returned to drawing cartoons and comics for the newspapers, but in view of the fact that the money income was not enough to support his family he started a new business. This consisted of touring those neighborhoods of the city that had no cinema and showing films on an outdoor screen. The Public-Cinema - as he called it - attracted many people; nevertheless, the municipal authorities thought that it interrupted the traffic and disturbed the peace, and they closed the business to him. In 1927, the American film company Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer hired him as advertising director of the Argentine subsidiary. In parallel, Cristiani was forming his own studio, Cristiani Studios. On September 16, 1931, Cristiani premiered Peludópolis, the first 80-minute animated feature film. It was about the corrupt 'city of the Hairy' (which was the nickname of the former president Hipólito Yrigoyen [1852-1933]). Yrigoyen had been the first president elected by secret popular vote (since the almost twenty previous presidents had assumed through corrupt elections) and finally was overthrown in 1930 by General Felix Uriburu, with the excuse of corruption. After that first coup d'etat, the Infamous Decade began. It is a political satire in which the pirates under El Peludo are shown boarding the State ship and evicting the forces of El Pelado (the former president, also radical, Marcelo Torcuato de Alvear) and heading towards the island of Quesolandia until that appears the Provisional Government (the dictator Uriburu) in a paper boat to take the power. The film caused Cristiani great economic losses. Faced with the impossibility of competing with the Disney company, which had greater technology and budgetary capacity, Cristiani's laboratory was dedicated to dubbing and subtitling foreign films. In 1941, Walt Disney traveled to Argentina before the premiere of his movie Fantasia. When knowing the work of Cristiani, the American businessman offered him employment in his studies in the United States, but the Argentine rejected it, since his laboratory had become one of the most important in the country and did not want to leave his company. Two fires, one in 1957 and the other in 1961, destroyed all of his films, with the sole exception of The Watchmaker Monkey, the only one that remains today. After the fire, Cristiani retired and was forgotten for a long period, until at the beginning of the eighties tributes were paid to him both in Argentina and in Italy. He died at home, in the city of Bernal, Argentina, on August 2, 1984.