Guillermo del Toro called for more support for animated films after his adaptation of 'Pinocchio' triumphed at the Oscars.
Guillermo del Toro has called for more support for animation after the Oscar win for 'Pinocchio'
The stop-motion animated film won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film on Sunday (12.03.23) and thinks that the practice should be taken more seriously by Hollywood.
Speaking backstage at the ceremony, Guillermo said: "Animation is ready to be taken to the next step.
"Animation is cinema, animation is not a genre... Keep animation in the conversation."
The 58-year-old director is promising to finance stop-motion classes for children in his native Mexico but thinks it will require more than an Oscar victory to aid animators.
Guillermo, who has now won three Academy Awards, said: "This is an art form that has kept being kneecapped commercially and industrially and the kid's table for so long.
"And it really is a mature, expressive, beautiful, complex, art form. So a win helps, but it is about going forward as a community."
The director continued: "It's important that we keep this alive as an industry and an art form. I have right now two scholarships active for filmmakers, and it is my desire and my commitment now to finance a stop-motion class (in Mexico).
"It will help us give more movies in the community in Mexico and in Latin America, to keep pushing for stop-motion, which is one of the most democratic forms of animation.
"All the other forms of animation are too difficult or too expensive. But a kid can put a camera on the wall in their room, they can do animation in stop-motion."
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