With Star Wars: Visions ‘Sith,’ Spanish Studio El Guiri Looks To Break The Mold
Ben Croll A veteran of Pixar, Blue Sky, and DreamWorks Animation, Spanish creative Rodrigo Blaas brought two decades of Hollywood experience to Madrid when he co-founded his own studio, El Guiri. And so, when Hollywood came knocking, Blaas answered with a bit of Spanish flair. “Some opportunities put you in a place to embrace the unknown,” Blaas says. “I saw it myself, watching Brad Bird come into Pixar and kind of break the system there. That’s what I wanted to do; I wanted to come up with something that could break the mold.” That something is “Sith,” a 14-minute short, commissioned by Lucasfilm to serve as Season 2 opener for the anthology series “Star Wars: Visions.” Written and directed by Blaas, and developed and produced fully in-house at El Guiri, the lauded short premiered earlier this month on Disney+ and will screen as part of a Spanish animation showcase at the Cannes Film Festival.