Chelita, Como me Duele Quererte

Originally from Mexico City, Luis Gerardo Ponce Pinon has always had a fascination with the arts, specifically an interest in the Animation field, fueled by his father’s enthusiasm for the medium. With a specialization and passion in concept development for animation, Luis’ knack for creating endearing stories, loveable characters and unified aesthetics has followed him throughout his life and has brought him great opportunities such as forming part of the inaugural class of the Netflix Animation Foundation Program in a partnership with LatinX in Animation.

Having grown up in the United States, his parents always instilled a love and respect for the culture and traditions of his home country, Mexico. This has been a huge inspiration behind a lot of his work where his goal is to break the myth of the monolithic Mexican experience and show the diversity in culture within different regions of the country. "Chelita, Como me Duele Quererte" is the first film he has written and directed and it has been such an honor to bring to life this story that is a tribute to the history and the beautiful things Mexico has to offer through a medium in which it is rarely depicted.

Riley S. Quinn is a story artist, with a strong online presence dedicated to showcasing the beauty of diversity in the realm of animation. She has worked in character design for animation at Bento Box Entertainment, and storyboarded for national advertisement at Vitro Agency.

Beyond her digital influence, Riley has also made her mark as an author with The Pendant of Hyacinth trilogy, amassing hundreds of thousands of followers on both Instagram and TikTok as part of her marketing campaign. She has twice been a featured panelist at San Diego Comic-Con, and looks forward to her next written project.

She is immeasurably proud to be directing “Chelita, Como Me Duele Quererte”, where she created the master-storyboard, supervised animation, and contributed to the film as a key animator herself. Being a leader for such a talented team is the highest honor, and she is elated to be showcasing the fruits of everyone’s labor alongside her brilliant peers.