Oct 25, 2023

2024 Academy Award® Contender for Best Short: Carne De Dios Directed by Patricio Plaza

Welcome to Cartoon Brew's spotlight series highlighting animated short films that have qualified for the 2024 Academy Awards. There are several ways for a film to qualify for an award. In this edition, we will focus on films that have won Academy Award-eligible prizes at festivals that are eligible for the Academy Awards.

Today's short film is Carne de Dios, directed by Patricio Plaza. The film won two Academy Award nominations: the Rigo Mora Award for Best International Animated Short Film in Guadalajara and the Chile Mono Award for Best Latin American Animated Short Film.

Set in colonial Mexico, the short follows a Spanish priest who falls ill and is forced to resort to traditional indigenous healing methods that he had previously condemned. The full short film is currently available on Youtube.

Cartoon Brew: Where did you get the inspiration to mix colonial history with supernatural fantasy? Latin America has a long tradition of what I call political horror as a subgenre of cinema, and animation has had a large presence in this field. Latin America also has a long tradition of magical realism, both in literature and film. Mixing history with fantasy and talking about social topics from a fictional approach is sort of natural for us and may bring new elements of discussion to it. Also, since the history of our continent is full of political persecution, artists have had to find ways to hide their messages in unrealistic fiction. Supernatural fantasy was unrealistic enough to appease the censors, while at the same time quietly speaking to the core issues of our culture. Dealing with such genres allows us to hide or traffic in subversive ideas beneath narrative devices that seem so far removed from our everyday lives.

What is it about this story or concept that captured you and inspired you to direct this film? I read documents written by Spanish monks and the edicts of the Inquisition that all indigenous spiritual practices, including the ritual use of sacred plants and mushrooms, were acts of the devil. I have found that demonizing other lifestyles and cultural minorities is the common ground of all forms of supremacism used to justify genocide of all kinds.

I grew up as a gay kid in the 80s. I think I am sensitive to the forms of oppression that all minorities must experience due to religious beliefs, especially institutionalized monotheism. Violence against indigenous cultures is one of the most graphic expressions of that persecution.

The only way to stand firm when dealing with sensitive topics is to trust your gut, even if it doesn't please everyone. But changing things always means pushing boundaries, especially in a conservative medium like animation. Part of the transformative nature of art is to make the status quo uncomfortable. I also learned to build an artistic ecosystem where each member of the team contributes to the story and the overall world of the film with their skills. I am grateful to the amazing team that accompanied me in this vision to complete this film. Nearly 100 people from Argentina, Mexico, and Colombia worked on this film and supported it in a collaborative effort. I am proud of that.

When we asked European funds for financial support, they all turned us down. Perhaps it was a sign that our film touches on subjects that are still difficult to address in animation, such as the colonial background and its consequences. Now that the film has been released, it is doing quite well at film festivals. In other words, sometimes you have to keep the faith to the end.

The visual style of the film is heavily influenced by Latin American popular art, especially comic artists like Alberto Breccia and Fontanarosa, painters like Oswaldo Guayasamin, and Mexican muralists. These influences are mixed with the Japanese and Western animation that was implanted in our brains during the 1980s and 1990s, as well as with the artist-driven European animation. Character designer Diego Pollieri and I worked with these influences to arrive at a postmodern visual aesthetic that mixes these disparate elements to build what I consider a popular syncretic aesthetic. I also included subversive elements and “ugliness” in the visual presentation of the iconic characters, and sought this roughness in both the visuals and animation to make the work grotesque and visually “violent” as opposed to the flowing, polished line drawings that dominate 2D animation. Working with art director Gervasio Canda, I concentrated on creating a different mood for each scene, creating a transition from a more natural atmosphere to the full hallucinatory experience the protagonist undergoes inside his body. This transition reflects the many stages of this trippy sexual iconoclastic horror experience that we created in the hopes of stirring the audience's guts a bit.