"Airgela" is "Alegria" backwards and "Alegria" means "Joy" or "Happiness." This is a fundamental word in this film. It's very important. Symbolically "Alegria" is crucial word in the creation of this project. Although it wasn't present from the beginning, as we were working on the music it became symbolic.

It's a film made in a very radical creative manner. It was possible because we didn't have to pander to capitalism. I think the film is also a humanistic cry for help for animation. It's a film [Boy and the World] with sensitivities completely opposite to what the market wants to sell.

The film [Boy and the World]gave me the possibility to create a new language. Animation is a very rich medium but hasn't fully been exploited by artists. Often artists are trapped by words.

I always told my team, "You have to believe that you are not in front of a computer, but that your canvas is a piece of paper. You have to believe this even if you have a computer in front of you."

A little bit more than 50% of what you see on screen is handcrafted and the other 50% was about emulating these textures on the computer. However, for us, when we were making it, we had to believe it was all handcrafted.

Each film has its processes. It doesn't mean that all animated films have to be like "Boy and the World," but creators have to have total freedom. There are films that are born with the purpose to sell. They are still admirable films with great artists and great visuals, but we wanted to use a more radical approach to create art. That's what we tried to do.

At the end of the process we called a market research company to find out whom the film was for or what was the target audience. We didn't have a lot of money to release the film, so in order for it to play in cinemas, which are dominated by films with much larger marketing budgets, we had to discover whom the film was for.