A Colombian artist is being criticized on social media after falsely claiming about her direct collaboration with Hayao Miyazaki on Studio Ghibli’s Golden Globe-winning film, The Boy and the Heron.
First reported on Cartoon Brew, Geraldine Fernández, a graphic designer at Colombian glass manufacturing company Tecnoglass, has convinced many major Spanish media platforms that she has worked closely with the director. actor and co-founder of Studio Ghibli, Hayao Miyazaki. himself. After The Boy and the Heron received the 2023 Golden Globe for Best Animated Feature Film, Fernández’s story went viral but was dismissed after there was no record of her ever working on the project. judgment in any capacity.
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Fernández’s story has appeared on multiple media platforms, including El Heraldo and El Tiempo, which detailed her deep involvement with the production of The Boy and the Heron. In these interviews, Fernández claimed to have single-handedly drawn over 25,000 frames and animated “basically the first 15 minutes of the movie.” She also claimed that she met and worked directly with director Miyazaki, who reportedly sent her a personal letter of thanks for her work on the project.
However, soon after her celebratory interview was published in El Heraldo on January 14, 2023, readers began to pick up holes in her story. There is no record in any of the film’s credits of Fernández’s name, and Cartoon Brew confirmed this with Studio Ghibli’s US distributor GKIDS. On January 15, the artist appeared in an interview with journalist and Twitch streamer Pablo González (@Caith_Sith on Twitch), where Fernández enthusiastically reaffirmed his statements, although González continues to poke holes in her story, including her online portfolio. This has since been removed but contains many illustrations and graphics taken directly from other artists online using platforms such as Deviantart.
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On January 16, Fernández did an interview with radio show Blu Radio, where she said she “regretted everything” after “exaggerating a lot of things”. She retracted many previous statements, including her claim of having single-handedly drawn 25,000 frames, which was revised to be a group effort to which Fernández contributed 200 frames. The female artist also affirmed that if she could go back in time, she would never tell her friends, who “had the audacity to spread the news” out.
Since the Twitch interview aired, Fernández’s social media accounts, personal website, and portfolio have been taken down. She told El País news agency that she contacted Studio Ghibli to provide evidence of her contribution to The Boy and the Heron. El Heraldo and El Tiempo have since compiled their first stories about Fernández.
The Boy and the Heron will air in Colombia on January 25. The Boy and the Heron is not yet available to stream but is currently playing in theaters across the US
The boy and the heron
A young boy named Mahito longs for his mother to venture into a world shared by the living and the dead. There, death ends and life finds a new beginning. A semi-autobiographical fantasy from the mind of Hayao Miyazaki.
Source: Cartoon Brew, El País