Guillermo del Toro: Crafting Pinocchio

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Introduction to *Guillermo del Toro: Crafting Pinocchio*

Introduction to Guillermo del Toro: Crafting Pinocchio

Installation view of Guillermo del Toro: Crafting Pinocchio, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, December 11, 2022 – April 15, 2023. © 2022 The Museum of Modern Art. Photo: Emile Askey

Director, Guillermo del Toro: I am Guillermo del Toro, co-writer, co-director, and co-producer of Pinocchio.

This is a fable very close to my heart, and one that I think has lived in many incarnations. And I trust the one we’re offering to you is a particularly beautiful one. This is a tale about becoming who you are, not transforming yourself for others, which goes counter to the traditional take on Pinocchio.

I think animation is coming to a crucial point in which we have to push it into being an art form that is recognized as cinema and not just a genre for a family audience. Animation, to me, has to break that barrier by being a little more daring technically, a little more daring thematically. No matter what audience ends up watching it.

So I thought it would be beautiful to make a heartfelt movie that would take stop motion animation, and push it as much as possible—visually trying to establish it firmly as the beautiful handcrafted thing it is.