Geraldine Fernández: “I regret everything”: the Colombian illustrator who exaggerated her participation in ‘The Boy and the Heron’

Colombian illustrator Geraldine Fernández Ruiz went from anonymity to disrepute in a matter of hours. Her sudden visibility for having participated in the award-winning film The boy and the heronwhich exploded when it won the Golden Globe for best animated film, quickly encountered the reality that it had exaggerated its contribution beyond recognition.

Since 2023, Fernández had been speaking privately about her work as an illustrator for the animated film directed by the Japanese master Hayao Miyazaki and his talented production company Studio Ghibli. But she also in public: in October she gave a talk at the Sergio Arboleda University headquarters in Barranquilla (her hometown) about her experience in the film. There he told the students that Studio Ghibli had sent him a “gift and a letter” for the work he had done: “The letter said ‘out of gratitude and for all the things you did, for the late nights, for your hard work.’ … because after illustrating almost 50,000, 20,000 frames, your hand looks like this and clearly they appreciate it too much there,” was what he said. The exaggerations that would launch her to fame were already defined.

After the triumph at the Golden Globes on January 7, his story became known in his city and throughout Colombia. On January 14, the newspaper The Herald, the most important in Barranquilla, published a note about Fernández’s supposed achievement. with the owner The talent from Barranquilla that won at the Golden Globes, the interviewee maintained that version of her contribution. “I had to do over 25,000 frames, it was sheet by sheet, scene by scene, everything by hand, some things were digital,” she said.

That same day, while his story spread like wildfire and was published by other media outlets such as Time either Infobaethe artist gave an interview to youtuber Spanish Pablo Gonzálezknown as Caith Sith. “Almost the entire first part of the film, which is almost 15 minutes, I did that entire scene. In other words, literally, the Colombian opened the film,” Fernández revealed, proud and smiling.

Tecnoglass, the company where she worked, even released a video spreading the supposed achievements of its employee. “I had to make the scene on 25,000 sheets of paper, I illustrated the scene 25,000 times,” Fernández repeats to the camera. The executive director of the glass company, Christian Daes, referred to it with great praise: “I wish one could be a crop of talents here and exportable, people who fly high, one does not want to be the pilot of the plane but to be the passenger, that people get ahead on their own and, later, one can share that they were there.”

But the magnitude of his contribution was much smaller. The media had not corroborated Fernández’s version, but that work was done on social networks. At first, it emerged that his name did not appear in the film’s credits, as would have been logical if he had had a participation of that size. Criticism and memes took over social networks.

This Tuesday morning the controversy reached the media. In an interview with Blu Radio, in which he faced criticism, Fernández admitted his mistake: “I worked on a couple of scenes from The boy and the heron“I exaggerated.” TO The Herald He told him something similar: “Yes, I participated, but I exaggerated in many things.” By phone, she explains to this newspaper that she participated as an illustrator in the film, but she accepts having exaggerated and enlarged her contribution. “It is not real that she made the 25,000 frames alone. She went as a team. She made 200″.

She states that she “did not want recognition” and that her story only became known because a friend, without asking for permission, told some journalists about the Barranquilla woman’s participation. She says that they took it upon themselves to replicate it, they started looking for her and she agreed to give them interviews. After the controversy unleashed, she says that she feels bad. “My cell phone doesn’t stop ringing. “People make fun of me and threaten me.” She explains that, if she could rewind time, she would handle the situation differently: “I regret everything. “I would have preferred not to have told my friends, especially the one who took the audacity to spread the information.”

Fernández explains that he came to work on the film after completing a master’s degree in illustration at the University of Tokyo. She claims that, upon finishing her thesis, they told her that her style was “very similar to that of Studio Ghibli” and that for this reason she was invited to participate in the film as freelance to make specific illustrations.

Fernández told EL PAÍS that he contacted Studio Ghibli last Monday to obtain a document that would certify his work on the film and thus put an end to the controversy. The illustrator assures that the studio has just sent her a statement certifying her contribution. However, she has refused to show it, as she prefers to avoid further discussion of her contribution to a production that is a favorite to win the Oscar for best animated film, next March 10 at the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles. .

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