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Animation studios blossom as 'Pinocchio' helps spotlight gifts of country's artists
Not long after winning multiple Oscars for "The Shape of Water," Guillermo del Toro visited his hometown of Guadalajara, Mexico, where he discussed ways to support the local industry.
Aside from launching two programs for Mexican animation talent to attend either the world-class Gobelins School in Paris through an Animexico scholarship or any film school around the world with the Beca Jenkins-Del Toro scholarship, he brought his celebrated "Monsters" collection of paintings, drawings, maquettes and artifacts to his beloved city. Most importantly, he founded animation studio Taller del Chucho, with his alma mater, the University of Guadalajara, as the lead investor.
He chose seven people with extensive experience in animation - Rita Basulto, Sofía Carrillo, Karla Castañeda, René Castillo, León Fernández, Luis Téllez and Juan Medina - to help transform the Taller del Chucho into a worldclass studio, train a new generation of talent and develop IP.
With this move, he came closer to realizing his goal to showcase Mexican talent to the world, arranging for some sequences of his stop-motion animated contender, "Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio," to be realized at the new studio. "I thought it was really important for their artistry to be seen in a movie of this caliber," he told Variety at the film's AFI Fest premiere in November.
"We needed to segment a section [in the film's production] that was important to be contained so we did the limbo chamber and the funeral procession of the black rabbits [at the Taller]. They created the puppets, the sets, they art directed, they did the cinematography and I had them animate the puppet Pinocchio as well as the cricket in one of the longest...