11 · 01 · 07

La leyenda de la Nahuala celebrates All Soul’s Day

Clara Sánchez/Translated by Vicente Castañar

[imagen]Leo’s story is a scary one, he is a boy that must face his fears in order to save his annoying brother Nando from the spells of the Nahuala, this movie premieres on November the 1st.
Ricardo Arnaiz is La leyenda de la Nahuala ‘s director. This movie is a magic journey through colonial Mexico; the stories of the living, the dead, the natives, the Spaniards and the mestizo’s are linked in this celebration of All Soul’s Day.
The story takes place in Puebla during 1807, this film is a mixture of mystery and action, and it is an entertaining animation for both children and adults.
One of the elements which was really looked into was the sound design, Gabriel del Villar was in charge of sound design and he composed the music for the Puebla Orchestra.
La leyenda de la Nahuala had a special premiere during the 5th Festival Internacional de Cine de Morelia, it was enthusiastically received by the public who at the end of the show had many positive comments for the film and its makers.

Interview with Ricardo Arnaiz.
Ricardo Arnaiz is a producer and director for movies and TV, he specializes in animation. He founded ANIMEX, an animation company, in the year 2000. During the last 7 years he has worked with various personalities as: Andrés Bustamante, Eugenio Derbez, Bruno Bichir, Emmanuel, Trino and Jis.

Where did the idea for this project start?
[image] “I wanted to make a film with a universal theme, overcoming fears. I always wanted to do a Mexican film and the right thing to do was to use a popular legend. A boy who is scared of a Mexican legend during All Soul’s day shapes perfectly will into making a different film. I wanted to make a film where children could experiment many emotions, like laughing and being scared.
I included All Soul’s Day because it is a real Mexican celebration which is known worldwide. It is a very nice tradition we have got and we are forgetting it due to Halloween. The idea was to make the film really attractive abroad while bringing back to life our traditions.”

Why did you decide to make the story take place during colonial times?
“The story takes place in 1807, we had to research really hard to find out how Mexico was back then in The New Spain. We focused in Puebla because it is a very colonial city, its architecture is from those years before Independence an it was a time of a lot of social diversity: indigenous people, mestizos, Spaniards, African people.
I wanted to make a film that reflected that ancient Mexico because sometimes we do not know our own history. I think it is really interesting that kids nowadays can actually identify themselves with children that lived 200 years ago. Back then they use to play “balero” and nowadays this traditional toy is disappearing.”

In this movie we can observe this, not only the different social classes but both cultures, Aztec and Spanish. What was your intention in bringing together these characters?
“I wanted to highlight Mexico’s cultural diversity. That is why we have Xochitl, an indigenous girl, Martha Higadera plays her voice. This girl is the movie’s heroin, because we wanted to see an indigenous character being proactive. Teodora Villavicencio, is a rich aristocrat Spanish girl. There is a Spanish knight, a ghost named Don Andres, he is a Quixote type, Andres Bustamante plays this part, this character is really crazy and thinks he always sees armed Moors. There is also an alebrije, our own Mexican dragon, a symbol of fantasy and this character interacts with the Spanish character, it is a wise character because it has lived in a library. The idea is for children to realize that an alebrije is as interesting as a Chinese or European dragon, like in Lord of the Rings.”