Gael Garcia Bernal & Camilo Lara Join Growing List of Latinos Working on Pixar’s Dia de Muertos Film

*The movie opens in theaters in November of 2017. VL

By Andrew S. Vargas, Remezcla (3 minute read) 

It’s been over a year since we last reported on the tortured saga of Pixar’s upcoming Día de Muertos-inspired feature Coco; but in the big picture of Coco’s ongoing six-year development process, it’s just a drop in the bucket. Back in 2010, it was Toy Story 3 director Lee Unkrich who first had the idea to make an animated film inspired by Mexico’s rich visual culture, but a series of delays and setbacks ultimately culminated in some unwanted controversy when Disney attempted to trademark the phrase “Día de los Muertos” across platforms in 2015.

But Disney-Pixar handled the whole thing like proper adults and listened to the outcry of Chicano activists, going as far as hiring high-profile critics like Lalo Alcaraz to serve as cultural consultants on the project. And now, after a series of promising overtures toward cultural authenticity, the team behind Coco has made an unprecedented play by revealing advanced details on Coco’s story and style to select journalists a full year ahead of it’s release. Judging from the warm response, we have good reason to be excited.

Read more stories like this in NewsTaco. >>  

First of all, the star-studded cast of voice actors includes none other than our future husband, Gael García Bernal, as a trickster spirit named Hector; alongside other beloved Latino stars like Benjamin Bratt, Renée Victor, and 12-year-old newcomer Anthony González as the movie’s golden-voiced protagonist, Miguel. According to a synopsis provided by Pixar, Miguel is the scion of an provincial family who refrains from participating in any musical activity, apparently on account of a long-dead patriarch who abandoned his wife to pursue fame as a musician.

Miguel, however, is a sweet young boy with a restless musical soul, and when he breaks into the mausoleum of a local musical hero to take his guitar, he is swept away to the spirit world where his ancestors lead him on a journey of personal discovery.

READ MORE