gael garcia bernal

Disney Animation and Pixar are heading into a bright new era of culturally influenced moviemaking, ushered in by Frozen’s Nordic-inspired production design and continued through Big Hero 6 and last year’s fantastic Polynesian fairy tale Moana. For their next trick, Pixar is traveling to the Land of the Dead for Coco, a Mexican-inspired adventure about a boy who finds the soul of a long-dead musician in the underworld. It also seems like Coco is taking a cue from Moana, because all of the cast for Coco is Latino.

The development and production process for most animated films is often long, leaving us waiting for years between the initial announcement and the finished product. Pixar’s next original film (and the only one on their schedule that isn’t a sequel) is no exception. We first learned about Coco back in 2012, and now, four years later, with a fall 2017 release on the horizon, Pixar’s new film is officially on a roll — Gael Garcia Bernal and Benjamin Bratt have joined the voice cast, and the studio has revealed some intriguing plot details, along with a new piece of concept art.