After winning two Méliès d’Argent awards at the Sitges Film Festival and the Ramaskrik Film Festival, animated short film The Quinta’s Ghost will now compete in 2026 for the Méliès d’Or, the highest annual award for European fantasy films. The film is based on an eerie chapter in the life of Francisco Goya, one of the most important Spanish painters of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
The Méliès Awards, created in 1995 and named after the pioneering filmmaker Georges Méliès, are among European cinema’s most prestigious honors for fantasy features and shorts. The cycle of competitions takes place throughout the year at festivals across Europe: Eight of these competitions present a Méliès d’Argent for feature and short, another 11 award a short film only. Out of these Méliès d’Argent winners, a jury chooses the short and feature winners of the Méliès d’Or, presented annually at Sitges in Spain.
This double award adds to the international film festival successes of The Quinta’s Ghost, directed by award-winning filmmaker James A. Castillo (VR animated short Madrid Noir) and produced by Illusorium and Martirio Films. The short had its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival and has also screened at Animest, Victory International Film Festival and HollyShorts.
Synopsis: In 1819 at the age of 74 and recently bereaved of his wife Josefa, Francisco Goya withdrew from public life to a crumbling country house on the outskirts of Madrid called ‘La Quinta del Sordo’. In his deep solitude the painter falls seriously ill. Closer to death than ever before, Goya is visited by the ghosts of his past. Tormented by these visits and with his health rapidly declining, Goya paints the Black Paintings on the walls of his home as a last resort to drive the ghosts out of his life — losing almost everything in the process, including his sanity and nearly his life.
The film is a classic gothic ghost story in which the house itself is the protagonist and the only spectator of Goya’s creative process — witnessing the man as the ghosts haunt him, and reversing the classic formula of the genre. Instead of a man entering a haunted house, a house is entered by a haunted man.
The voice of the house is performed by Goya award winning Spanish actress Maribel Verdú (Pan’s Labyrinth, Y tu mamá también, Los girasoles ciegos, Snow White).
Originally from Madrid, Castillo been working in animation for over 10 years. He started his career in Singapore, where he spent two years after finishing his studies. Since then, he has worked in Spain, the U.K., France and the U.S. Starting out as a designer, over the years he has taken on roles such as art director, concept designer, character designer and storyboard artist with Sony Pictures, Paramount, Nickelodeon, Netflix, Warner Bros. and others. Some of the films he’s contributed to include Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (Paramount) and The Mitchells vs. The Machines (Netflix).
In 2021, Castillo made his debut as a director with the Madrid Noir (Oculus), which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York. The VR film won several awards, including Best VR Experience at the VR Awards, Best Narrative Experience at Stereopsia and a Webby Award for Best Immersive Project in 2022, as well as an Emmy for Best Interactive Project in 2022. In 2023, Castillo founded Martirio Films, an independent production company focused on fostering animation productions in Spain.
