To commemorate the year that was, we invited an array of artists, writers, filmmakers, designers, and performers to share a list of the most noteworthy ideas, events, and objects they encountered in 2019.
Cristóbal León is a filmmaker and visual artist who has made several short films, using stop-motion animation in many of them. Much of this work is made in collaboration with Joaquín Cociña under the moniker León & Cociña. At the 68th Berlinale, the duo premiered its first animated feature, La Casa Lobo (The Wolf House), which screened at the Walker in September 2019. León’s work has been exhibited at the Venice Biennale, the Museum of Modern Art in Buenos Aires, and the Guggenheim in New York.
I.
OCTOBER 18 IN CHILE
What happened in Chile on October 18, 2019, is the most important and impactful political event of my adult life. I can only compare this fervor and uncertainty to October 1988 (I was 7 years old), when we had a plebiscite to decide if the dictator Pinochet would continue to rule. What is happening now in Chile is on one hand an uprising of people against decades of social injustice, and on the other hand a brutal and unprecedented repression by the government and the police force. We are still trying to assemble the puzzle, trying to understand what forces are acting at this time and also in complete uncertainty about where all this will lead.
Among the many symbols that have been raised during the Chilean social movement of 2019, perhaps the most repeated in T-shirts and in the impressive street graphics is the Negro Matapacos, a dog turned into a kind of popular saint. In life, the Negro was a regular of the marches that earned the nickname of matapacos (copkiller) for trying to bite the police. After his death, this quiltro (mutt) became the symbol of resistance and a recognition of our cultural and ethnic jumble.
2.
MEXICO CITY
I spent a lot of time in Mexico City in 2019 and decided that I want to live in that strange and amazing seismic swamp.
3.
AMERICAN GODS

This year I read Neil Gaiman’s comics again and discovered his literature books (not comic). I also watched the series American Gods, based on one of his novels. So imperfect but so strange and inspiring.
4.
OLD TOY MUSEUM AND STRUWWELPETER MUSEUM
I visited for the first time two museums that became my favorite ones. The first, the Old Toy Museum in Mexico City presents itself as “the largest toy collection in the world.” I felt that this building was a kind of living being, a beautiful and monstrous son of its owner, Roberto Shimizu. “Don’t collect anything!” he told me when I talked to him, warning me that it is a curse. The second, the Struwwelpeter Museum in Frankfurt: a museum dedicated to the Struwwelpeter, a controversial and insane 19th-century German children’s story book, in which children are burned and mutilated.
5.
HEROES PASSING
Our world said goodbye to three of my heroes: Bruce Bickford, Daniel Johnston, and Juan Pablo Langlois.
6.
DE ALGO HAY QUE MORIR
De Algo Hay Que Morir is the third solo album by my favorite Chilean musician, Diego Lorenzini. Besides being a radically original composer, Diego is a born storyteller, telling deeply local stories like all good universal art.
7.
THE HYPERBOREAN
In a hotel in Mexico, Alejandra Moffat, Joaquín Cociña, and I started writing our next film, The Hyperborean, and with this we started also imagining the world we will live in for the next few years.
8.
NEW CHITOSE AIRPORT INTERNATIONAL ANIMATION FESTIVAL
I traveled two days by plane to the other side of the world to be part of the jury at the New Chitose Airport International Animation Festival. I think that only in Japan is it possible for there to be a festival in which all visitors sleep inside an airport where movies are also screened. For many days we did not leave that indoor universe, and actually it was not necessary: there was even a sauna inside.
9.
BIRTHDAY COMIC
For my birthday, I received a comic made by Julieta, my girlfriend, about our story or what she thinks our story is about.
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