Guillermo Del Toro Shares Insights on His Adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s ‘The Buried Giant’ at BFI Career Talk
Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro received the prestigious BFI Fellowship, the British Film Institute’s highest honor, earlier this week in London. In celebration of this achievement, he has participated in a series of discussions and presentations throughout the city. On the evening of the award ceremony, del Toro engaged in a career Q&A session with film historian and BFI executive Jason Wood.
The conversation was both passionate and expansive, covering topics from del Toro’s childhood in Guadalajara to his interests in design and scrapbooking. During this session, he provided a glimpse into his upcoming project—a stop-motion adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s 2015 novel The Buried Giant.
Del Toro characterized the film as a “fascinatingly difficult stop-motion movie for adults,” emphasizing that it is being produced “without any concession to a family audience.”
The narrative centers on an elderly British couple, Axl and Beatrice, navigating a fictional post-Arthurian England where no one can retain long-term memories.
Working alongside Matilda the Musical writer Dennis Kelly, del Toro explained his choice of stop-motion animation for the adaptation. He believes this format preserves the story’s authenticity, similarly to his previous work on Pinocchio.
“If you do a live action Pinocchio and all of a sudden a puppet walks through, it becomes uncanny valley, which is a horrible thing that doesn’t belong in the same world,” he stated. “Just like if you make a live action movie about an old couple crossing a landscape full of trolls and fairies, and there are special effects and actors.”
Del Toro further added, “I want all the creatures to be of the same material. It’s gonna take us years. And it’s incredibly difficult.”
In another reveal, del Toro announced he is reuniting with his longtime collaborator Ron Perlman for The Buried Giant. While he did not disclose Perlman’s role, he affirmed: “He’s coming on the next movie.” This marks another chapter in a collaboration that dates back to del Toro’s debut film, Cronos.
Del Toro is developing The Buried Giant for Netflix, continuing his partnership with the streaming service after last year’s Frankenstein. He is also set to appear at the Cannes Film Festival, where he will present a 4K restoration of his celebrated film, Pan’s Labyrinth, as part of the Cannes Classics lineup. The BFI has also announced a new 4K copy of Cronos, which will be re-released later this month.
