Picasso always said that to be the best artist you needed to remain a child in your mind, and this element is present here. There is the playfulness in the way textures, colours and images rebound across the screen to the carefully constructed sound track that acts as the glue that keeps the whole film coherent and intelligible. When it starts off, you imagine you would not be able to watch it to the end, as you are bombarded with colours, ideas, sounds and images that border on the surrealistic. But it is immersive and pulls you in and suddenly you realize that it has finished and you were totally absorbed.
Pichardo-Espaillat says he sees his work as a form of magic-realism that reflects the surreal experience of growing up in the Caribbean Island of Dominican Republic. He explains, in an interview with Movidiam: -
“My work is packed with textures and saturated colours, my compositions most of the time are very chaotic. It wasn’t until a friend drew a parallel between where I grew up and my work, that I realized the influence. Santo Domingo is very chaotic. The streets are loud and dirty. You can see little houses over houses over houses. And colours mix that don’t make any sense at all.”
Pichardo-Espaillat ( Tomatico) This animator / director has been exceptionally prolific, producing a large number of shorts (some educational), including music videos. One example is his 2022 film, Las Mariposas: How three sisters defied a Dictator. This is the true story of the Mirabal sisters, who tried to kick start a revolution against the brutal dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo in the Dominican Republic in the middle of the 20th Century. The images are simple and almost monochrome, but very powerful all the same, with a commentary with the narrative. It is, in effect, a history lesson and despite its interesting visuals, feels a little like being at school again.
Now in ‘Olivia y las Nubes’, he also uses the idea of having a sound track with dialogue and voices mixed with music, using it to hold the non-linear story together, but the effect is far more adventurous. There is a collage effect of subsequent scenes, presented in totally different visual styles. The remarkable mixing of mediums, from cardboard cut-out figures, clay animation, drawings and coloured textures (combined, at times, with live-action), gradually build up a distinct final picture, so the film becomes an experience.
Pichardo-Espaillat’s work uses certain recurring themes. He likes to explore universal experiences, like love, war, heartbreak, trauma and loneliness. In Olivia y Las Nubes, he touches on relationship breakdowns and memories that are so deeply embedded they become real. Olivia, for instance, is so haunted by her hopes and dreams that she has concluded that her past love is hiding under her bed. “She trades flowers with this ghost in exchange for comforting rain clouds. [Meanwhile] Barbara, rejected by Mauricio, escapes reality through fantastical stories, as Mauricio, full of regrets, is swallowed by the earth. Ramón, smitten by Olivia, witnesses the growth of a strange plant mirroring her. [In this way], the film surrealistically explores the enduring power of love's memory.”
All these emotions are expressed through an avalanche of textured and inventive visuals that throb with vibrant colour, themes and playful ideas, always touching on rain and the loneliness. Tomás Pichardo-Espaillat is a major talent that, hopefully, will have the opportunity to develop this approach further. We are so used to the more traditional content of Disney, Pixar or Dreamsworks animated features that it was hard to imagine a more adventurous approach would work, but I feel that, in many ways, Pichardo -Espaillat has succeeded and we hope it will lead to more interesting productions.
Tomás Pichardo-Espaillat (known as Tomatico) is of the generation who have excelled in the use of the internet and he has found ways of showing his many shorts through platforms like YouTube. Born in Santo Domingo 1987, he studied initially in Altos de Chavón and went on to New York to study animation at the Parson’s School of Design, Later, he perfected his art at the Fábrica Communications and Research Centre in Italy. He is a professor at many schools and is animation director for TED-ED, the TED platform for youth education.
Most of his short films are available on YouTube.
OLIVIA AND THE CLOUDS (Olivia y las Nubes) 2024,
will be screened at the BFI London Film Festival on October 17th and October 19th at NFT2 Southbank and the Curzon Soho Screen.
OLIVIA Y LAS NUBES (2024)
Writer/Director/Animator Tomás Pichardo-Espaillat / Production: Amelia del Mar Hernandez and Fernando Santos / Music: Cem Misirlioglu / Cinematography: Jeremy García and Tomás Pichardo-Espaillat / ANIMATION: Vicky Medina, Freddy Guerrero, Nika Zhukova, Martina Zena, Randy Morales, Joery Santos, Erik Alfredo Martínez, Carmela Peña, Ottmar Suero, Samuel Caraballo, Gia Zapata / Sound: Umbrai Sonora/ Sound Design: Homer Mora and Denis Godoy.
Cast: - Olivia : Olga Valdez / Mauricio: Fery Cordero Bello / Barbara: Dominique Goris /Yudelkis:Fidia Peralta / Laura: Maria Rebecca Dalmasí /Marinero:Ricardo Airel Toribio / Arturo: César Calagno/ Ramón: Hécto Aníbal.
