What is the film about?

A song inspired by the story of the Monkey King from the Chinese classic Journey to the West. In this story, a powerful monkey, born from a magical stone, is trapped beneath a mountain by Buddha himself after becoming too powerful and causing chaos in heaven.

What influenced it?

I’m a fan of experimental Japanese films made using the straight-ahead animation technique, but for this video I was thinking a lot about Georges Schwizgebel. I’ve been following his work for a while and have always been curious to understand how his films were made.

For a long time, I was obsessed with a small detail in his films: how the background colors seem to invade the whole scene. I later understood that this happens when you paint on acetate films and place the result over a colored background. For years I’ve been making painted animations on paper, but trying this process on acetates was a real discovery for me. In a time when we’re constantly being pushed to use AI to work faster, choosing the slowest but most enjoyable path felt like a statement in itself.

A little background information...

Juana Molina is a great artist whom I really admire. Her music is very personal and unique. I felt that if I wanted to try this technique, it had to be on a project that was meaningful to me, and I immediately thought about reaching out to her. She happened to be preparing the release of her new album, so it all clicked.

How was the film made?

The initial draft of the video was made in Adobe Animate. Then every frame was printed and used as a reference to paint with acrylics on acetates.