Cachorro Loko

2015, 5:30 min., color, sound, Cachorro Loko
Director and animator: Igor Shin Moromisato
Editing: Moïra Himmelsbach
Color: Anderson Rego Freitas
Color Assistant: Claudio Yoshio Niigaki
Music and sound design: Ernesto Koba and Carlos Andrés Reyes
Sound mixing: Ralf Schipke
Categories: Film/TV/video, animation film
Production: Academy of Media Arts Cologne

In the frustrating stasis of a colossal traffic jam, the characters in Julio Cortázar’s La autopista del Sur, made into a film by Italian director Luigi Comencini (L’ingorgo, 1979), exaggerate their flaws, escalating tensions, neurosis, and brutality. In the traffic jam, the law of the jungle abides, humanity is suspended: homo homini lupus. Everyone is against everyone.

In Cachorro Loko, Igor Shin Moromisato turns men into fierce wolves or rabid dogs (there are no women), with a twist. In his short film, the traffic jam is worsened by torrential rains, and when the overflowed river turns the road into a muddy mess, the wolves stop fighting. The characters’ initial uproar turns into solidarity, and they begin playing cards, reaching an implied agreement to overcome the chaos around them. Igor Shin portrays traffic as an alienating condition generated by mankind, whereas the rain comes from nature. The very hostile power of nature ascribes human feelings to wolves. The title character, one of the motorbike couriers, which are called Cachorros Lokos in Brazil, swerves in the traffic and lands in the river, to avoid the lazy otter ((capybara)) carelessly crossing the street. The otter ends up climbing onto the same floating couch where the poor biker finds safety. It is a peaceful, easy ending, in which a stoic view of human and animal destinies is recomposed. The biker finally comes to terms with his situation and serenely shares his safe haven with his careless companion. The traffic jam is a clear and direct metaphor. This little gem of an animation gives us a subtle and profound message. You might get angry, you might become a wolf, but no one and nothing will get you out of an agonizing traffic jam. It seems it may be better to contemplate the fate of our fragile existence and to look at things from a different perspective. St. Augustine, after reading the pages of Virgil that tell of Aeneas leaving Dido, said: “I wept for Dido when I should have wept for my own sins.” He was talking about love. Love is the context of this simple and universal story.

_{Text - Isabel Herguera}

Igor Shin is an animation artist with the fine arts and comic roots, compositing, frame by frame animation, print media, video mapping. Igor is a part of VAMOS Animation, an independent Animation Studio based in Cologne, Germany. 

Cachorro Loko was shown and won prizes on various festivals in Germany and around the world, such as "Award Winner of 2015 International Short Film Festival Oberhausen / Germany  /  NRW Competition" and "Best Animation Prize of Kurz und Schön 2015 Cologne / Germany".