JuliaGranilloTostado

I dance and draw, draw while dancing, but mostly I make drawings dance

-Hibrido: Brazilian Videodance

director / animator / illustrator / choreographer

Ser Semilla (2024)Major Screenings:-Ariel Award Nominee for Best Animation Short, (Mexico) 2025-La Semaine de la Critique, (France) 2025-Annecy International A. Film Festival (France) 2024-Animafest Zagreb (Croatia) 2024-Morelia International Film Festival (México) 2024-Tricky Women / Tricky Realities (Austria) 2024-Monstra Animation Film Festival (Portugal) 2024-Guanajuato International Film Festival (México) 2024

-Hibri

Julia Granillo TostadoI dance and draw, draw while dancing, but mostly I make drawings dance

is a Mexican director / animator / illustrator / choreographer constantly mesmerized by movement and all of its possibilities. Her films explore a range of themes from the embodiment of female bodies /in diaspora and migration/ to feminist adaptations of folkloric Mexican tales. She works primarily with analogue hand-drawn animation with natural pigments she extracts from seeds, flowers and roots. This technique engages her in a corporeal manner, keeping her practice physical, close to the body, and rooted in the land.Her films have been screened in an array of international festivals such as Annecy, FICM, La Semaine de la Critique, GIFF, Animafest Zagreb, Tricky Women, etc. In 2025, Ser Semilla received an Ariel Award (AMACC) nomination for Best Animated Short.She completed her B.A. at Bennington College (USA), where she studied the concept “Emotion through Motion” through the disciplines of Animation and Dance. She graduated with honors from two Animation Master Degrees: LUCA School of Art (Brussels), and as part of the RE:Anima EMJMD program (Belgium, Finland, Portugal).She is co-founder of Taller Menea, an animation studio in Mexico City.

major screenings

Ser Semilla-Ariel Award Nominee for Best Animation Short, (Mexico) 2025-La Semaine de la Critique, (France) 2025-Annecy International A. Film Festival (France) 2024-Animafest Zagreb (Croatia) 2024-Morelia International Film Festival (México) 2024-Tricky Women / Tricky Realities (Austria) 2024-Monstra Animation Film Festival (Portugal) 2024-Guanajuato International Film Festival (México) 2024

Tonalli-Habana International Film Festival (Cuba) 2022-Morelia’s International Film Festival (Mexico) 2022-New York Animation Film Awards (USA) 2022-Montreal International A. Film Festival (Canada) 2022

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Anhelo-Hibrido: Brazilian Videodance Festival (Brazil) 2021-III Video Arte Faenza, (Bogotá y Habana) 2020-Choreoscope, (Barcelona) 2020.-Demakijaż – Women’s Film Festival, (Poland) 2020-Morelia’s International Film Festival, (Morelia) 2019

Anhelo
-Hibrido: Brazilian Videodance

Collective Exhibitions

SomeWher Gallery, CDMX (2025), Collective exhibition “Rituales y Remedios”.Oodi Library, Helsinki (2022), Collective exhibition “Virtual Rituals”.

education

RE:ANIMA EMJMD - Masters in Animation
.Honors. Summa Cum Laude.
LUCA School of Arts, Aalto University, Lusofona UniversityLUCA School of Arts - Masters in Animation
.Honors. Magna Cum Laude.Bennington College - B.A. in Arts (Animation and Dance)UWC Adriatic - I.B. Diploma

Thesis
- "The Importance of Representation in Animation -- with a focus on Latin American Women".-"Adaptation in Animation. Analysis of the power of rewriting stories to revisit the past, resist the present, and imagine the future".Articles
-Adaptation as a counter-hegemonic narrative strategy- An exploration through the analysis of female animators

selected press

Interviews-Corte y queda, Capital 21. Interview link-Ser Semilla, Annecy. Interview link-Encuadres Magazine. Interview link

Articles-Who's Next: Julia Granillo Tostado, Girls at Films. link-Mexican filmmakers in Cannes, El Universal. link- Morelia x Cannes, Milenio. link

Reviews-Ser Semilla, Cinergie. link-Ser Semilla, Go Critic - Cineuropa. link

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Ser Semilla (2024)Tonalli (2021)Anhelo (2019)Anhelo Installation (2019)Echar Raíz (wip)Los Rumbos (wip)Yo Despierta (2022)Crisálida (2016)With Both Hands (2017).Commissions
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. Demo Reel .

Anhelo-Hibrido: Brazilian Videodance Festival (Brazil) 2021

Ser Semilla (2024)

A group of witches struggle with the increasing violence in their town. Women are disappearing.
.Ariel Award Nominee for Best Animation Short, (Mexico) 2025

-Hibrido: Brazilian Videodance
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-Hibrido: Brazilian Videodance

Notable Selections-La Semaine de la Critique, (France) 2025-Annecy International A. Film Festival (France) 2024-Animafest Zagreb (Croatia) 2024-Morelia International Film Festival (México) 2024-Tricky Women / Tricky Realities (Austria) 2024-Monstra Animation Film Festival (Portugal) 2024-Guanajuato International Film Festival (México) 2024-Imaginaria Animation Film Festival (Italy) 2024-Interfilm Berlin - KUKI (Germany) 2025Viborg Animation Film Festival (Denmark) 2025Animayo (Spain) 2025+60 Official Selections

Anhelo

“Ser Semilla” is a poetic retelling a 17th century tale of witchcraft in our 21st century; a story about women, witches, gender violence, about women’s strength and resistance.The film is done with only natural materials. Pigments extracted from avocado seeds, coffee, red cabbage, black beans, and sand animation..

Anhelo-Hibrido: Brazilian Videodance Festival (Brazil) 2021,
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Process

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Anhelo-Hibrido: Brazilian Videodance Festival (Brazil) 2021

tonalli (2021)

"Shadows are our companions; they grow alongside us, they change with us, we can inherit them just as our ancestors left us their names" -Nahua belief.From her birth, Alma inherited her grandmother’s shadow, however, growing up she began to feel distant from her roots. Until one day Alma looses her shadow.-2D animated film (mixing hand drawn digital and analogue).

-Hibrido: Br

Notable Selections-Habana International Film Festival (Cuba) 2022-Morelia’s International Film Festival (Mexico) 2022-New York Animation Film Awards (USA) 2022-Cartoon Club (Italy) 2023-Stafford Film Festival (England) 2023-Montreal International A. Film Festival (Canada) 2022

Anhelo-Hibrido: Brazilian Videodance Festival (Brazil) 2021,
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Anhelo

anhelo (2019)

Anhelo- from the latin word anhelare- breathless/longing/asfixia/yearning/sigh/desirous/craving/ache/

-Hibrido: Brazilian Videodance Festival (Brazil) 2021

Notable Selections-Hibrido: Brazilian Videodance Festival (Brazil) 2021-IMARP, (Sao Paulo) 2020-Baixada Animada, (Rio de Janeiro) 2020-III Video Arte Faenza, (Bogotá y Habana) 2020-MIRA Latin American I. Film festival, (Bonn) 2020-XVI Muestra Internacional de Mujeres en el cine y la TV, (CDMX) 2020-Choreoscope, (Barcelona) 2020.-Demakijaż – Women’s Film Festival, (Poland) 2020-Morelia’s International Film Festival, (Morelia) 2019

A visual poem which explores the limits between the tri-dimensionality of the body and the bi-dimensionality of drawings. Dance is physical, it exists at a specific time and place; animation recognizes no such boundaries, you can create a world that can be morphed, bent- defying the rules of nature.

Anhelo-Hibrido: Brazilian Videodance Festival (Brazil) 2021
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anhelo installation (2019)

Anhelo- from the latin word anhelare- breathless/longing/asfixia/yearning/sigh/desirous/craving/ache/

-Hibrido: Brazilian Videodance Festival (Brazil) 2021

Crisálida (2016)

Installation and performance by Julia Granillo and Gala Meyer.
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Animation by Julia Granillo Tostado.

-Hibrido: Brazilian Videodance Festival (Brazil) 2021

Yo despierta (2022)

Video for the theater play "Yo Despierta", interpreting the poem "Primero Sueño" by Sor Juana.
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Animation by Julia Granillo Tostado.
Music by Ricardo Lomnitz.“This video was created at the request of Seña y Verbo and MANIK Arte para Todos for the play
“Yo despierta,” and was produced for the 50th Cervantino Festival, with support from the Mexico City
Theater System.”

-Hibri

-Hibrido: Brazilian Videodance Festival (Brazil) 2021

Echar Raíz (wip)

Animation short film by Julia Granillo Tostado

.What if we forgot how to “be” without moving?
How will we ever find our roots?The stories of a woman and a flower merge as they both seek for a place to call home..Genre: Poetic narrative.
Target audience: 12+
Expected length: 10min
Technique: 2d Hand drawn with natural pigments.
Status: Pre-production.

-Hibrido: Brazilian Videodance Festival (Brazil) 2021
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los rumbos (wip)

Exhibition and installation to come.

-Hibrido: Brazilia
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Animation trials by Julia Granillo Tostado

-Hibrido: Brazilia

with both hands (2017)

Animation by Julia GranilloBased on a story by Nessie Nikouradze.Music by Coco Rosie I don't own any copyrights

-Hibrido: Brazilia
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Animation excerpts. Mixed media animation: watercolurs & AE.

-Hibrido: Brazilia

Commissions

Series of commissioned work for: production houses, video clips, documentary films, museums, opening/closing credits, educational videos, etc..Clients:
-UNITAR
-Alebrije Cine y Video
-Museé de la Mode et la Dentelle
-Sin Sentido Films
-Ceteris Paribus
-Canal 22
-etc

-Hibrido: Brazilia
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Animation by Julia Granillo Tostado

-Hibrido: Brazilia

Editorial work for Elefanta

-Hibrido: Brazilia

I focus on analogue hand drawn animation.
.For the past few years I've specialized in working with natural pigments extracted in my kitchen..This way I interact with my projects from a corporeal manner, while also creating a practice that is more sustainable.