Ambassador - National Italian American Foundation

courtesy of Disney/Pixar
Animated Italian
By Maria Garcia
Nonno, Papa and Bambino in “La Luna”
If your childhood memories
include Saturday afternoons
at the neighborhood movie
house, then your first film was a
short—a cartoon, a serial, or a
silent comedy “one reeler.” For
Enrico Casarosa, it was Osvaldo
Cavandoli’s “La Linea” cartoons,
which he watched on Italian TV
as a boy. Cavandoli’s young character
and the unexpected events
he encounters pop up from la
linea, a line drawn across a
colored background. The
cartoons have universal appeal,
yet the character’s temperament
is manifestly Italian.
Casarosa’s childhood in
Genoa, and Cavandoli, inspired
his first film, “La Luna,” an
animated short. “I grew up with
my dad and my grandfather, and
they never got along,” the writerdirector
says in a phone interview
Enrico Casarosa
Draws on His
Italian Boyhood
to Make an
Oscar-Nominated Film
from Pixar Animation Studios.
“Growing up, I often felt stuck
between the two.”
As a storyboard artist at the
California studio, Casarosa draws
the first images of what become
animated shorts or feature-length
films. “I thought it would be
interesting to tell a story to kids
about finding their own way
when people are telling them
to do things in different ways,” he
says.
Casarosa’s boy protagonist in
“La Luna” accompanies his quarrelsome
father and grandfather
to their unusual job and, at a
crucial moment, makes a unique
contribution to their labors.
The Oscar-nominated short
opens with a glimpse of the prow
of a battered wooden boat. Her
name, La Luna, is printed on the
starboard side. “The thing that
interested me about that shot is
that it was great to see the boat
come in and be so close to the
water,” Casarosa says, “because
then I would be able to show the
kid, yet not the parent and grandparent
who are taller.”
Desiring a timeless, fairy-tale
quality for the boat, Casarosa
went home to observe the boatmakers
of Genoa, who believe
souls are granted only to vessels
crafted of wood. Afterward, as he
sketched La Luna, he thought of
her as his “fourth character.” The
film begins in the evening, just
before the moon rises. Stars twinkle
in the background, and the
ultramarine hue of sea and
evening sky bathe the frame.
The seven-minute short,
which premiers in theaters this
fall along with the animated
feature “Brave,” began with
ON FILM
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Ambassador 55