As the second day of Fall classes began, Animation students got off to a quick start with a masterclass featuring the animator-director Rita Basulto, joined by cinematographer Sergio Ulloa, a former teacher and mentor of Basulto’s. A fixture on the Guadalajara animation scene, the Ariel Award-winner (the Mexican equivalent of an Oscar) inspired students not only with her outstanding work, but with the fine art techniques she employed to cast and finish her jaw-droppingly amazing stop-motion puppets. The masterclass was co-presented by FICG in LA and LMU SFTV as a students-only program of the 5th Annual Guadalajara Film Festival in Los Angeles, August 27-30, 2015.
In addition to the animation masterclass, the film school also sponsored the festival’s Mexican Animated Shorts Showcase, which featured for the first time a collection of shorts created by some of the most notable Mexican animators from the Tapatio (Guadalajara’s native) stop motion, among them Rigo Mora, Rene Castillo, Karla Castaneda, Juan Jose Medina, Sofia Carrillo and Basulto. Associate Professor of Animation Jose Garcia-Moreno skillfully moderated a panel following the screening at the Egyptian Theater.
But wait, there’s more! The film school was also able to further champion Mexican and Ibero-American cinema thanks to Associate Professor of Production Sylvia Morales. She served on two important industry juries – DocuLab.2 and Guadalajara Construye in Los Angeles 2, which identified two films to receive post-production funds.
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Preview Basulto’s film, Lluvia en los Ojos, winner of Best Short at the Durando Film Festival, 2013.
To see more, view a slideshow of SFTV’s FICG LA activities here.