Guillermo Del Toro

At the Annecy Festival, where the animation industry and those who dream of being part of it gathered last June, Guillermo del Toro's presence is revered as that of a god. The master from Guadalajara, winner of the Golden Globe both in live-action for directing The Shape of Water (2018) and in animation for his victory with Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio (2023), was the one who made it possible for this edition of the foremost animated film event to focus on Mexico.

For Mexican director Guillermo del Toro, having made Pinocchio is a dream now achieved since he began thinking of his own version of the story 15 years ago. Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio is a new version of Carlo Collodi's classic tale, told with stop-motion animation techniques.

Guillermo del Toro’s Cold War fantasy drama The Shape of Water took home the top award at the 74th Venice Film Festival. “ I believe in life, I believe in love and I believe in cinema,” del Toro said as he accepted the Golden Lion to a massive standing ovation at the Palazzo del Cinema’s Sala Grande.

Guillermo del Toro’s lifelong fascination with monsters and dark fable takes a liquid form in The Shape of Water, an otherworldly love story which is at its core a lyrical, poetic and poignant celebration of artists, idealists, and dreamers. And ultimately, as the director told an HFPA journalist just after receiving a minutes-long standing ovation at the Palazzo del Cinema, about love conquering fear.

Festivals are all about a vast array of talent, ideas and points of view. A good festival - like the ever-classy, ever-young Venice Film Festival - also emphasizes collaboration, its relaxed atmosphere allowing for filmmakers and actors to get together to both celebrate their work and conjure future projects.

With works like Cronos, Mimic, The Devil’s Backbone, Hellboy, Pan’s Labyrinth, and Crimson Peak, Mexican author Guillermo del Toro has proved to have a fascination with darkness and an extraordinary eye for detail. His visually striking films and his unique vision has inspired the Los Angeles County Museum of Art to feature the filmmaker’s work in a major museum retrospective.

An upcoming LACMA exhibition will bring Guillermo del Toro’s legendary horror collection to the public for the first time.  “This morning I woke up in the Dickens room, which is a room that is dedicated to Dickens, and all the furniture is Dickensian and Victorian, and it’s surrounded by books from the Victorian era (…) and I exited through the Nosferatu corridor by pushing the secret painting on the wall into my kitchen.

Guillermo del Toro talks about his film Don't Be Afraid of the Dark.