Cachorro Loko

2015, 05:30, Color, Sound, Cachorro Loko

Director and Animator: Igor Shin Moromisato

Edit: Moïra Himmelsbach

Color: Anderson Rego Freitas

Color Assistant: Claudio Yoshio Niigaki

Music and Sounddesign: 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 "El Cachorro Loko", Igor Shin Moromisato turns men into fierce wolves (there are no women), with a twist. In his short film the traffic jam is worsened by torrential rains that when the overflowed river turns the road into a muddy mess, the wolves stop fighting. The character's 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 proposes human feelings to wolves.

"El Cachorro Loko", the main character, is a lazy otter, who provoked an accident by not looking before crossing a street, which ended throwing a biker into the river. The otter ends up climbing onto the same floating couch where the poor biker found safety. It is a peaceful, easy ending, in which a stoic view of human and animal destinies are recomposed. The biker finally comes to terms with his situation and serenely shares his safe heaven with his careless companion.

The traffic jam is a clear and direct metaphor. This little gem of animation gives us a more subtle and profound message. You may get angry, you may 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".

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