It took Rita Basulto seven years to make the film that put her on the list of possible Oscar candidates/Photo by EFE
In the so-called “shortlist” of Oscar nominations, a Mexican work appears in the animated short film category. Is about Smoke, work of Director Rita Basulto.
Although all eyes are on Tótem (Lila Avilés, 2023) in the Best International Film category, smoke It is a piece that also opens up another opportunity for Mexico to enter the competition. but above all to project national productions and the level they have abroad.
Smoke's case is special because it is an animation. Shooting a film in Mexico is almost miraculous because of how difficult it is due to the cost. Creating animated content is much more complex and time-consuming because it is expensive. The trust of potential investors is low and the distribution channels are very limited. But something is starting to change.
It's not new that people are betting on making Mexican animated films. It is an effort that has been underway for some time, but is only now beginning to resonate. With Pinocchio (2022), Guillermo del Toro showed national and international audiences the talent and fine craftsmanship with which Mexico creates its animations.
Recently and in a rare if not unprecedented event, The billboard began exhibiting an animated Mexican feature film in 2024, Uma & Haggen: Princess and Vikings (Benito Fernández, 2022). At the last Ariel Prize, two films also competed in the Best Animated Feature Film category: Águila y Jaguar: The Legendary Warriors (Mike R. Ortiz, 2022) and Home is Somewhere Else (Carlos Hagerman and Jorge Villalobos, 2022).
It took Rita Basulto seven years to make Humo. Part of this delay was because she became a mother and took a break, which made him change his perspective on what he wanted to tell. During this time she worked as a cameraman on other projects, such as Tío (Juan J. Medina, 2021).
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Motherhood and the experience with Tío helped her reread violence from the perspective of her childhood. Then Smoke continued the story of an infant that shows how sad and hopeless it is to live in a concentration camp at a young age during the Holocaust.
smoke It was made using the stop motion technique and sculptures from paper and cardboard. Seven shapes of the protagonist's face were made so that each one could express a different emotion. Basulto worked with Taller del Chucho, an animation studio founded by Guillermo del Toro.
Basulto joined the camera department of Guillermo del Toro's “Pinocchio” and worked in the second unit. He has directed the animated short films The Eighth Day of Creation (2003), Lluvia en los ojos (2013), and Zimbo (2015). She was a photographer Heart workshop (León Fernández, 2016).
Smoke is of great personal value to the director. His seven-year-old son Dante is the one who gives the voice of the child protagonist. It wasn't easy for him because he knew how the story would end and that hurt him. “He asked why I always tell such sad stories and I replied that maybe I do it so that people don't forget stories like this and so that they don't happen again,” the director explained to El Heraldo de México.
Of 93 short films submitted for the Oscar, Humo reached the decisive stage and has a chance of getting into the final nominations for the statuette in its category. This work clarifies the panorama Two Mexican directors are on the shortlists for the Oscars: Lila Avilés and Rita Basulto.
