Mexico’s Pixelatl Festival Unveils 2022 Trailer From Mighty Animation (Exclusive)
Pixelatl, Mexico’s premiere animation festival, will be back to its in-person format this year, but this time in Jalisco’s capital city of Guadalajara.
As is tradition, Pixelatl commissioned a leading Mexican studio – Guadalajara’s own Mighty Animation this year – to create the festival’s trailer, which Cartoon Brew is honored to premiere below.
Aquí te encuentras is a dialogue-free sci-fi short in which a ponchoed protagonist flies through the cosmos on a shooting star to find his way home. The short is directed by Julio Pacheco with Alejandro Solórzano as head of production and Ale Mendoza as production coordinator. Artie Rodriguez, Madelein Treviño, and Pacheco handled background and character design with Evally Owo Aguila, Guillermo Calderón, and Pacheco handling animation. Jorge Martínez Chávez composed the film’s charming music.
Mighty Animation is one of Mexico’s top independent animation studios and has partnered with global giants including Warner Bros.’ Adult Swim and Cartoon Network, Netflix, Disney, Nickelodeon, and Riot Games, to name just a few. Major titles which Mighty has worked on include a Rick and Morty ID for Adult Swim, Star Wars Galaxy of Creatures for Disney, and America the Motion Picture for Netflix.
Pixelatl artistic director Christian Bermejo explained, “For us it is really significant that Mighty is the creative partner because they are from Guadalajara and they have been with us throughout our journey. In fact, we published Julio Pacheco’s comic book years ago and Madelein Treviño won the #GirlPower open call that we do with Cartoon Network, which allowed her to create her pilot for Forgotten Forest, and the whole team has been connected to Pixelatl in some way.”
Cartoon Brew was able to speak briefly with Aquí te encuentras director Pacheco and Mighty Animation head of production Solórzano for the short’s debut.
What does it mean for you to be able to make the official short film of the festival?
Pacheco: It is an honor to be able to create something for the festival together with the Mighty team. I have a lot of love for the festival and its people. I have met many beautiful people and had incredible experiences at Pixelatl, and considered making this short an opportunity to create a sort of letter of thanks to the festival itself.
What were your influences, both visually and in terms of the short story you manage to tell in just one minute?
Pacheco: For this project, the way children’s books are told and illustrated has been a huge influence. Specifically, the work of Oliver Jeffers and Matthew Forsythe, whose illustrations are huge and full of fine detail that can be seen on each page.
What else are you working on at Mighty right now?
Solórzano: We’ve got several projects we’re working on right now at Mighty, in both 2d and 3d. Some are for local clients in the region, others are intellectual properties with a global reach and for large studios, such as Disney and HBO, among others. We would love to be able to give more details since we are very excited about the opportunities we are having within the industry, in addition to the great work that our teams are delivering day by day, however we must maintain a certain discretion for now. We are looking forward to announcing more about these incredible projects and how our team has been able to contribute to them with their effort and talent.
