Tuesday, October 27, 2009

One of my only frustrations during our trip to San Francisco a few weeks ago was to know that I would miss the screening of Ted Thomas and Kuniko Ukubo's Walt & El Grupo in Madrid. I still have not seen this documentary, which is a real shame.

In the same animation festival (Animadrid) where the screening happened, another documentary was also presented about Walt, which I missed without any second thoughts: Disney a Traves del Espejo (Disney Through the Mirror) by Eduardo Soler, about the infamous (and obviously totally absurd) rumor of Walt's birth in Mojacar, Spain.

This rumor, born thanks to Franco and the Spanish magazine Primer Plano, is unfortunately still alive and, as every stupid and false rumor, is bound to survive us all. They say in French "Calumny, calumny, something will always stick." Too true for our own good.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Yes Didier, rumors stick, especially when it comes to someone like Disney. I guess every country in the world would like to claim him for its own. Just don't understand how Chicago, his real birth place, claims him so little. The house Marcel Proust was born, in France, has a plaque on it for people to know and see, even though it is not on any cool place, and Proust is not as popular as Disney. His bedroom has been reconstructed in a museum and so forth. The WDF museum is a reason for Americans not to fall behind, in this sense, finally! Many thanks and congratulations for Disney's family, that were the reason for it.
Imagine if it were really true that Disney was born in Spain, what people there would and wouldn't do! I would like to see the "wishful thinking" documentary just for fun.... Do you know if it will come here?