A Spanish premiere... outside Spain: the curious case of 'Chico & Rita'

Chico & Rita is a tender love story that unravels on the sensuous streets of Havana and the swanky nightclubs of New York in the 1940s and 1950s. Chico is a Cuban pianist who dreams of carving a niche out for himself in the world of jazz, while Rita is a singer with a fascinating voice. Made in Spanish, in San Antonio de Baños (Cuba), it is the first animated feature from Valencia-born, Barcelona-based designer Javier Mariscal and Oscar-winning film director Fernando Trueba (Belle Epoque) and was released in the UK in November, three months before its Spanish premiere. The film's Spanish distributor, Buena Vista- an affiliate of Disney- has decided the best release date here for the film, which has already earned plaudits at the Telluride and Toronto festivals, as well as from British critics, is February 2011.

The story of the movie began six years ago when Mariscal told Trueba that, after making various TV projects, he did not want to die without realizing his dream of making an animated feature film with a good script and powerful story. All the numbers associated with the work are big: two and a half years to write the script, a year in search of financing - 10 million euros, which eventually came from Trueba's producers, Mariscal's studio and UK company Magic Light Pictures - and three to make and produce it. The 90-minute film uses almost 130,000 frames in 146 scenes, all based on Mariscal's original drawings. The music, as could be no other way in a Fernando Trueba film, is a key part of the production, employing the talents of such great musicians as Bebo Valdés, Mike Mossman and Jimmy Heath to perform on the original soundtrack.

The film is just the beginning for Mariscal's studio, which has three other animation projects aimed at adult audiences in the pipeline: one with Pep Bras, of the group El Terrat, another with Trueba and one with chef Ferran Adrià. The aim, says Tony Errando, Mariscal's brother and co-director of the film, is clear.

"Confronted by the power of the Americans, European film has been quiet in this field," he says. "We are losing our voice. To reach the international market, we must seek universal essences and distance ourselves from the incidental. What we aim to do, from our studio in Barcelona, is to tell our stories but in another way. We know we don't have Hollywood budgets, but we do have other values. Chico & Rita is the first example of the animation craft we want to apply. It is haute couture, not prêt-á-porter."