![\"Sandra](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/sandra-powers.jpg\")
<\/a>Sandra Powers<\/p>\nFor Powers, the project is deeply autobiographical. \u201cBut the story is a very personal story,\u201d she told Cartoon Brew. \u201cIt\u2019s actually a story based on an experience that I went through when I was younger, when I lost my mother.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although Powers has spent more than 15 years as an animation editor at studios including Nickelodeon (Legend of Korra), Disney (Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur), and, most recently, Flying Bark on an unannounced Netflix series, she said she has wanted to tell her own stories for years, but was waiting for the right opportunity.<\/p>\n
\u201cI keep creating for other people, but I want to be able to tell my own story,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s really, really hard to jump from editor to creator, especially in this industry.\u201d<\/p>\n
That opportunity came after Powers was selected for the Latino Film Institute\u2019s Spark Animation Fellowship, sponsored by the Netflix Fund for Creative Equity. Working under the fellowship\u2019s one-year deadline, she assembled a team that included many of her former collaborators from Marvel\u2019s Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur to bring the film to life.<\/p>\n
Rather than treating the film\u2019s Beasts of Death as conventional monsters, Powers designed them as manifestations of grief itself.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe beasts all actually represent different stages of grief,\u201d she explained. \u201cEach of the challenges that she has to overcome is essentially a stage of grief.\u201d<\/p>\n
Because of the short\u2019s runtime, she narrowed Claudia\u2019s emotional journey to three stages: denial, rage, and bargaining. The story ultimately builds toward acceptance, although how it arrives there is a spoiler, so you won\u2019t find out from us.<\/p>\n
The creatures themselves draw inspiration from Supay, the shape-shifting ruler of the underworld in Andean mythology. But the film\u2019s visual identity is equally rooted in Powers\u2019 upbringing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m Peruvian, but I was raised in Miami, Florida,\u201d she said. \u201cThe whole \u2018tropi-goth\u2019 thing comes honestly from my childhood.\u201d<\/p>\n
She describes \u201ctropi-goth\u201d as the collision of two worlds: the pastel colors, neon lights, and tropical atmosphere of 1990s Miami with the darker imagery and folklore that fascinated her growing up.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen the tropical meets the gothic, essentially, which is me fully,\u201d she said. \u201cThe tropical side does feel very Latino, but it feels very Miami Latino to me\u2026 The Andean is just coming out of me, probably, because it\u2019s in my bloodline.\u201d<\/p>\n
Music also plays a central role in the film, reflecting Powers\u2019 parallel career directing opera. The score features singer-songwriter Elizaveta, whose fusion of operatic and electronic music became a defining element of the project.<\/p>\n
\u201cHer voice is basically the voice of the mother throughout the soundtrack of the entire film,\u201d Powers said. \u201cThere are sometimes moments where there are hundreds of tracks of her voice doing different kinds of textures.\u201d<\/p>\n
She added that vocal layers and chanting are woven throughout the film to create an emotional atmosphere that connects both Claudia\u2019s mother and the supernatural world she enters.<\/p>\n
Powers believes her years as an editor also shaped the finished film, particularly its pacing. During production, she restructured a seven-minute musical sequence herself over a single weekend before handing it back to the storyboard and music teams for refinement.<\/p>\n
\u201cI shaped the entire thing,\u201d she said. \u201cI shaped the whole project to kind of have its own unique feel, because I knew the arc that it needed everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We\u2019re excited to debut the first trailer for Beasts of Death (Bestias de la Muerte), an animated fantasy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":529868,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[93,61,60,270],"class_list":["post-529867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=529867"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529867\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/529868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=529867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=529867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=529867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}