Mexican Animation Doc ‘Home is Somewhere Else’ Bows at Annecy
variety.comEmiliano Granada In what promises to be an incredibly busy Annecy, Brinca Animation Studio will premiere its animated feature “Home is Somewhere Else” at the French animation meet’s Contrechamp section, its major sidebar.Co-directed by Carlos Hagerman and Jorge Villalobos, the Mexican animated feature reflects on the lives of the many undocumented Hispanic immigrants arriving in the U.S.; less interested in simply stating the immense difficulty that this means for them and keener on observing with care the emotional consequences that it entails.
Built around the voices of real characters and their families, the toon’s varied styles become deeply intimate. Seen from the protagonists’ worldview, the film becomes an earnest call for empathy in a country that is witnessing an unprecedented influx of immigrants.
A portrait of four different characters presented by a sharp-witted narrator called “El Deportee,” voiced by José Eduardo Aguilar – whose real-life story is also told in the film – who with playful lyricism swings between English and Spanish, pondering, both in form and text, the elusive nature of the immigrant: living in between worlds, never truly accepted, always confined to an outsider status.Variety interviewed Hagerman, Villalobos and Eduardo ahead of their feature’s June 13 Annecy premiere.The film is divided into three chapters in which you use very different styles and animation techniques to portray the characters’ experiences and dreams.
How was the process in finding each style? Jorge Villalobos: It was a very organic process that started with meeting Jasmine, the protagonist of the first story.
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