‘The Quinta’s Ghost’ Director James Castillo Interview, Trailer

Acclaimed Spanish director James A. Castillo’s haunting new short, “The Quinta’s Ghost,” premieres in the Official Selection at this year’s upcoming Tribeca Festival, and Variety has been given exclusive access to the film’s official trailer and poster, which can be found at the bottom of this article.

Castillo is a longtime Hollywood animation vet whose credits include “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” and “The Mitchells vs. the Machines,” among others. He previously wowed audiences with his Children’s & Family Emmy-winning VR film “Madrid Noir,” and now turns his eye to 19th-century Spanish painter Francisco de Goya and the ominous Black Paintings he created in isolation at La Quinta del Sordo in the later stages of his life.

Using tools of the horror genre and the latest real-time animation technology, Castillo brings the ghosts of Goya’s past and the voice of the house itself, portrayed by the iconic Maribel Verdú, to visceral, gothic life. Co-written with Julio A. Serrano, with artistic collaboration from Pakoto Martinez, the short marks the first production from Castillo’s own Martirio Films and was produced in partnership with Illusorium Studios in Madrid.

Variety sat down with Castillo to discuss the emotional cost of independent animation, the challenge of staying faithful to Goya’s legacy and why Spain may strongly influence the future of adult animated storytelling.

This short took four years. Why so long, and what did you learn in that time?

I started developing the project during Christmas in 2021, and it took over a year before we had a script and a properly developed deck, with concept art, character designs, etc. After developing the project with just me and a couple of friends, I came to Illusorium early in 2023 with a deck and an animatic already halfway done. After that, it was two years of actually making the film. During this time, I also had to open a company, Martirio Films, which meant learning how to apply for grants, deal with sound, music, VFX, marketing, everything. It was a steep learning process.

And when you’re independent, the premiere isn’t the finish line. It’s the starting point. If I don’t spend the next year trying to get this film seen, then it would feel like a disservice to all the work we have done over the past four years.  I will have wasted four years of work.

Was the goal always to talk about Goya and Spanish culture, or did that evolve during development?

It started as something very personal, very introspective. I didn’t set out to make a film about Spanish identity or Goya. But the deeper I dug, the more obvious it became that Goya was the perfect avatar. These two sides of him, the historical myth and the human being, offered this cinematic space to explore themes I care about.

We never even say his name in the film. That’s deliberate. I wanted to talk about Francisco, not “Goya.” The man behind the myth. Just an old man alone in a house, painting violent visions on the walls to deal with his traumas. That felt visceral and cinematic.

How did you approach translating his art into animation? The paintings are iconic. Was it intimidating?

Yes, very. We approached it with a lot of respect and studied as much as we could about his painting process and how we could implement it into our pipeline, whether it was through how we painted the textures, how we lit the scenes, the color palette, etc. In the end, it became a lot about trust: trusting my past decisions, trusting my team and trusting that Goya’s spirit would still be there, even if we weren’t replicating every brushstroke. The ghosts in the film were animated in Quill, in VR, which gave them this otherworldly dimensionality. The house was treated like a character, its size, framing and presence change depending on its relationship with Goya.

One of the early challenges was figuring out how to make the ghosts feel like they physically occupied the same space as the painter. That’s where real-time tech came in. We weren’t trying to be flashy; we were solving a creative problem.

You’ve worked with big studios, but this short was produced independently. What changed?

Everything. When you’re on a studio film, you’re part of a machine. On this, there was no machine. Just me and a few collaborators. The only way this kind of indie animation works is if people are genuinely excited to contribute. I couldn’t ask anyone for three years of commitment, but I could ask for short, high-quality bursts of output if the direction was clear and the pipeline tight.

I promised them: if you give me your time, what you deliver will be in the final film. I won’t remix or rewrite your work. That trust helped attract artists who were also hungry to explore a darker, more stylized tone, something they aren’t always allowed to do in commercial animation.

Spain’s animation industry has traditionally focused on children’s content. Do you see that shifting?

Absolutely. There’s a hunger here, especially among artists who’ve spent years being underestimated or underfunded. Now that they’re returning from international studios or finding new tools, they’re saying, “Why not now? Why not us?”

We don’t have to follow the U.S. model. We have public funding. We don’t need to chase box office numbers in the same way. That means we can take more risks. We can make things like “The Quinta’s Ghost,” things that differentiate us.

Is this a sustainable model? Could you do another short like this?

Absolutely not. Honestly, no. It’s not sustainable. This model depends on emotional capital, people giving you their time, passion and trust. I had to invest personal savings into this. That’s not something you can replicate or scale into something bigger. 

But I hope this short opens the door. I’d love for it to lead to larger, more ambitious projects, maybe a feature, maybe a limited series. I want to keep making work that pushes boundaries.

What does success look like for “The Quinta’s Ghost”?

Visibility. My last project, “Madrid Noir,” was a VR film, and although it managed to find a small audience, a lot of people couldn’t access it because of the technology needed to do so. This time, I want people to see the work. Awards are great, of course, but the real success is reaching an audience, and maybe showing people that animation can do more than make kids laugh. It can haunt you. It can move you.