Decorado: Alberto Vázquez on the Journey from Animated Short-film to Feature-length Animation

Directed by Alberto Vázquez, distributed by Le Pacte

Spanish director Alberto Vázquez, known for Psiconautas and Unicorn Wars, talks about the conception of his new animated feature Decorado. Winner of the Paul Grimault Award at Annecy 2026, the film is released in France by Le Pacte. It is a dark, tragic epic wrapped in the aesthetic of children’s cartoons.

Inside their little house, two mice say “I love you” to each other every night. Yet in the world of Decorado, dark forces are at work: a terrifying owl hunts in the forest, ghosts rise out of tombs, fairies become avatars of depression, and the all-powerful corporation A.L.M.A governs the lives of all inhabitants. Existential anguish grips Arnold, an unemployed mouse: could this entire world merely be a set-piece? If so, how can it be torn down to catch a glimpse of reality?

In his previous work Unicorn Wars (2022), Alberto Vázquez already placed a children’s cartoon universe within the conventions of the most violent war films. Like Unicorn Wars and his debut feature Psiconautas (co-directed with Pedro Rivero in 2015), Decorado originates from one of the director’s short films.

From fanzine to short film

The short-film version of Decorado, co-produced with French animation studio Autour de minuit, came out in 2016, yet its inspiration stretches much further back. “The universe of Decorado grew out of comic strips published in independent publications, such as the fanzine Enfermo (Editor’s note: Spanish for “sick”), a self-produced zine I made with friends in Spain almost twenty years ago,” Alberto Vázquez explains. “These were not long-running serials in a fixed magazine, but one-off releases within the independent publishing circuit.”

Running less than five minutes, the short assembles mini-narratives. “Highly fragmented, like pieces of a small puzzle: it told stories of superficial lives, ordinary moments, the ugliness of labour…” Key characters for the feature are already present: Arnold the unemployed mouse, his ghost best friend, the sad demon who plays the harp in a marsh and seduces a mermaid, an alcoholic actor impersonating Donald Duck… And as a recurring motif: the idea that the world is theatrical scenery, a stage, a trompe-l’œil — in Spanish, a decorado.

From pamphlet–style satire to epic scope

“The success of Unicorn Wars allowed me to make Decorado, and to finish it faster than my prior film; the whole process took fewer than four years.” When Alberto Vázquez decided to adapt his short into a feature, he initially planned to keep its collection of micro-stories, before realising this approach would not work. “Over ninety minutes, that structure fell apart. In my view, it would have felt too experimental for audiences. We needed a more stable, linear narrative with fewer time-jumps.”

Even though Psiconautas grew from short Birdboy, and Unicorn Wars from Unicorn Blood, Vázquez stresses that the short-form Decorado is neither a test run nor a rough draft for the feature. Short and feature each hold their own distinct identity; they are not simply “short version / long version”. “In animation we cannot afford to produce test drafts. They demand immense labour, specialised techniques, and lengthy financing cycles. That said, Birdboy functioned as a teaser for Psiconautas. Even though it adapted one of my comics, we had intended to expand it into a feature from the start.”

From black–and–white to colour

Change extends beyond narrative into aesthetics. The original short uses black-and-white visuals evoking 19th-century engravings. “That monochrome look fitted the short perfectly, yet it simply did not translate to a feature. We would have completely lost the underground edge of the short,” states the director. “Still, colour is no compromise. Colours carry meaning. We worked with restricted dual-tone palettes, variations built from only two hues, echoing the manichaean, deceptively simple logic of this fictional world.”

Multiple studios collaborated on feature animation, and Alberto Vázquez emphasises: “No artificial intelligence was used in production whatsoever.” Work was split between UniKo in Bilbao (Basque Country), Glow in Extremadura, Abano Productions in Galicia (near the director’s hometown A Coruña), and Sardinha em Lata in Lisbon, Portugal. Visual references range from 1940s Walt Disney cartoons to the surreal cruelty of Luis Buñuel’s cinema. Though digitally created, the team strove to replicate hand-crafted textures, notably simulating gouache paint effects.

From refrain to operatic form

In the short film, scattered micro-stories are linked by the word “decorado”, sung at a high pitch, like a warped sitcom. At the end of both short and feature, characters chant “decorado, decorado” in loops, as if inside a hallucinatory opera. “I liked closing both works identically with this haunting, deeply ironic and parodic chant,” the director comments.

Music is greatly expanded for the feature. Vázquez re-enlisted Unicorn Wars composer Joseba Beristain for a score blending electronic ambient sound and classical music. It draws from 1980s Swiss cold-wave band Grauzone, Frédéric Chopin, ambient textures and Bulgarian choral singing. “The film mixes classicism and modernity, so its soundtrack had to weave together contrasting musical styles.”

From A.C.M.E. to A.L.M.A

The omnipotent corporation ruling the short-film world is A.C.M.E — referencing the all-powerful firm from Looney Tunes, whose gadgets Wile E. Coyote endlessly deploys, yet never succeeds in catching Road Runner. In the feature-length adaptation, A.C.M.E becomes A.L.M.A, short for Almighty Limitless Megacorporative Agency.

“I originally wanted to keep the name A.C.M.E,” the director clarifies. “However, for contractual reasons and to avoid potential trademark legal conflicts, producers preferred us to use another name. That is how A.L.M.A was born; it works as a parody of A.C.M.E. Besides, alma carries powerful symbolic weight in Spanish: it means ‘soul’.” The core satirical purpose remains unchanged: to stage and parody our hyper-capitalist society. Alberto Vázquez sums it up: “The film’s central idea is to denounce the great lie, the farce of our world. Life mixes joy and sorrow, and I wanted Decorado to stir both emotions. In these troubling times of political crises and superficial human connections, I believe sadness itself can be an act of radicalism.”

This radical outlook does not stop the filmmaker from creating new work. “I have a loyal audience in Spain, which brings me access to producers. I can make the films I want, and animation budgets are becoming more reasonable. Psiconautas actually cost less than Decorado. Still, I am unsure whether I will keep making films. Spending an average of five years per project, leading teams of a hundred people, drains huge amounts of energy. Deep down I prefer illustration, the solitary work of comics and graphic novels. There I can draw quietly, apart from the conflicts of the outside world.”

DECORADO Distributor: Le Pacte Direction: Alberto Vázquez Screenplay: Alberto Vázquez & Francesc Xavier Manuel Ruiz Production: María y Arnold AIE, Uniko, Abano Producions, The Glow, Sardinha em Lata Distribution: Le Pacte Release date: 26 August 2026 Selected support from the CNC (Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée)

Source：CNC

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