Jul 20, 2022

Mexico's Pixelator Festival Releases Mighty Animation's 2022 Trailer (Exclusive)

Mexico's premier animation festival, Pixelatl, will be held again this year in Guadalajara, the capital of the state of Jalisco.

As has become customary, Pixelatl has commissioned one of Mexico's leading studios - this year Mighty Animation of Guadalajara - to produce the festival's trailer.

"Aquí te encuentras" is a dialogue-free science fiction short in which the protagonist, dressed in a poncho, rides a shooting star through space to find his way home. The film is directed by Julio Pacheco, with Alejandro Solorzano as executive producer and Ale Mendoza as production coordinator. Artie Rodriguez, Madeline Treviño, and Pacheco did the background and character design, while Everly Owo Aguilar, Guillermo Calderón, and Pacheco did the animation. Jorge Martinez Chavez composed the film's charming music.

Mighty Animation is one of Mexico's top independent animation studios and has partnered with some of the world's leading companies, including Warner Bros. Adult Swim, Cartoon Network, Netflix, Disney, Nickelodeon, Riot Games and Riot Games. Major productions by Mighty include Adult Swim's "Rick and Morty ID," Disney's "Star Wars Galaxy of Creatures" and Netflix's "America the Motion Picture."

Christian Bermejo, artistic director of Pixelatl, said, "Having Mighty as a creative partner is very important to us. In fact, we published Julio Pacheco's comic many years ago, and Madeline Trevin-O won our #GirlsPower open call with Cartoon Network, which allowed us to create the pilot for The Forgotten Forest." Everyone on the team is connected to Pixelator in some way.

Cartoon Brew was able to speak briefly with Pacheco, director of Aquí te encuentras, and Solorzano, head of production at Mighty Animation, for the debut of this short film.

What does it mean to you to be able to produce an official short film for the festival? I have a lot of love for the festival and its people. I met so many wonderful people at Pixelator and had an incredible experience. By making this short film, I wanted to create a sort of thank you letter to the festival itself.

What were your influences, both visually and in terms of the short one-minute story? Specifically, the work of Oliver Jeffers and Matthew Forsythe. Their illustrations are huge and full of fine detail found on each page.

What else are you working on at Mighty right now? Mighty is currently working on several projects, both 2D and 3D. Some are for local clients and others are global intellectual properties for major studios like Disney and HBO. We are so excited about our opportunities in the industry, in addition to the great work our team delivers every day, that we would love to share more details, but we must maintain a certain level of discretion for now. We look forward to announcing more about these great projects and how our team was able to contribute with their hard work and talent.