Chilean filmmakers Cristóbal León and Joaquín Cociña, directors of the acclaimed 2018 animated movie The Wolf House / La casa lobo, have directed a video for the renowned English singer and songwriter PJ Harvey. The animated video is for her new song “I Inside the Old I Dying,” from her forthcoming album of the same name, which will be released on July 7.
The Chilean directors describe the visual for the video, which was shot in lifesize-scale stop motion animation style, as “a short story about love, death, and resurrection.” Last year, they had also directed a video for the English rock band The Smile.
León and Cociña have been working together since 2007. They were educated at the Universidad Católica, Santiago de Chile. León also studied at UDK (Berlin) and De Ateliers (Amsterdam). With their experimental films, Leon and Cociña create a new interpretation of the religious symbolism and magical rituals that are deeply rooted in the traditional culture of Latin America.
For the production of their films they combine different techniques such as photography, drawing, sculpture, dance and performance. An unpolished cinematographic language characterizes the stop-motion films of León and Cociña. The papier mâché figures and innocent-looking drawings strongly contrast with the heavy topics such as religion, sex and death the films deal with. León and Cociña have won numerous awards and their films have premiered at Rotterdam, Venice, Berlin, and Locarno among other international film festivals.
Their work is frequently exhibited in museums and biennials in Latin America, but it has also been presented at venues such as the Whitechapel Gallery, the Guggenheim, KW Berlin, the Venice Biennial 2013 and Art Basel Statements 2012 with Upstream Gallery. Together with Niles Atallah, they founded the film production company Diluvio.
Watch the video:
