Latino Pride: Guillermo del Toro Makes History by Winning Triple Crown at the Oscars

When it comes to Hollywood representation, Guillermo del Toro has broken the mold. The Mexican director is now the first person in history to win an Oscar for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Animated Feature.

The adaptation of the classic “Pinocchio” took home the award for Best Animated Feature at the 95th Academy Awards ceremony. The award took Guillermo del Toro to a place no other director has gone before.

“Animation is cinema, is not a genre. Animation is ready to be taken to the next step. Keep animation in the conversation,” del Toro said during his acceptance speech.

“This is an art form that has kept being kneecapped commercially and industrially and the kid’s table for so long,” del Toro said backstage, elaborating on his on-stage remarks. “And it really is a mature, expressive, beautiful, complex art form. So a win helps, but it is about going forward as a community.”

Guillermo Del Toro’s Crusade

Before “Pinocchio,” Guillermo del Toro won his Best Director and Best Picture Oscars thanks to 2017’s “The Shape of Water.” 

However, his path to the top has been one of struggles against a system that seems to forget the art behind the screen.

Guillermo del Toro today has three Oscars, three BAFTAs, and an Emmy under his belt. But it has been his love of fairy tales and horror that has won the hearts of audiences.

Before the awards came pouring in, Del Toro had made a name for himself in Spanish-language cinema with films like “Cronos” (1993), “The Devil’s Backbone” (2001), and “Pan’s Labyrinth” (2006).

Along with his close friends and fellow Mexican filmmakers Alfonso Cuarón and Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Guillermo Del Toro put the Latino representation behind the camera.

In this way, and thanks to his stories that today form a beautiful Cabinet of Curiosities, Guillermo del Toro has tried to put animation, especially stop-motion, back on center stage.

In fact, his first feature film, “Cronos,” was to be in stop-motion. After hundreds of hours working on sets and some 100 puppets over three years before shooting, the dream fell apart. One night, vandals robbed the studio and destroyed everything Guillermo Del Toro and his crew had made.

Hence the landmark achievement of “Pinocchio.”

“It’s important that we keep this alive as an industry and an art form,” del Toro continued. “I have right now two scholarships active for filmmakers, and it is my desire and commitment now to finance a stop-motion class [in Mexico].”

“It will help us give more movies in the community in Mexico and Latin America to keep pushing for stop motion, which is one of the most democratic forms of animation,” the director added. “All the other forms of animation are too difficult or too expensive. But a kid can put a camera on the wall in their room; they can do animation in stop motion.”