Yahoo Lifestyle Aria Covamonas’ Buzzy Animated Feature Debut ‘The Great History of Western Philosophy’ Acquired by Miyu Distribution (EXCLUSIVE)
Global indie animation powerhouse Miyu Distribution has acquired Mexican Aria Covamonas’ buzzy debut feature, “The Great History of Western Philosophy,” sure to be a key player on the 2025 animation festival circuit.
Featuring digital cutout animation, the meta comedy turns on a cosmic animator hired by the Central Committee of the People’s Republic to create a philosophical film for Chairman Mao. The leader is outraged, however, when the depressed filmmaker gives up on the project before it even gets off the ground and sentences the director to death by firing squad.
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Mao’s murderous motivational techniques fail to light a fire under the filmmaker, but an intervention from “Journey to the West’s” Monkey and Pigsy inspire the protagonist to embark on a journey through the history of Western philosophy and some of its most impactful characters.
Inspired by Lacanian theory, the film plays with the frontier between reality and perception and the role that language plays in shaping human experience. Through Dadaist collage, a keen sense of humor and plenty of irony, Covamonas examines zeitgeisty themes of meaning and identity.
“Aria’s film is an incredible piece of art,” Miyu Distribution founder and president Luce Grosjean tells Variety. “I fell in love immediately with the visuals, the energy, the absurdity. The film has nothing to envy from ‘Ubu, roi,’ it is pure art and funny. We know that the public we know the best, festival audiences, will love it, and we cannot wait to this crazy journey with them.”
“The Great History of Western Philosophy” is produced by Mexico’s Fedora Productions. Producers on the feature include Lucia Cavalchini and Camilla Uboldi. Associate producers are Pablo Baksht and Nicolás Baksht Somonte.
Technically, the film is pieced together using an intricate collage of public domain footage and audio, with each piece carefully chosen to create a dream-like aesthetic. Covamonas worked meticulously to craft each frame of the 73-minute feature, producing roughly three seconds of footage per working day.
According to the film’s producers, “This slow, deliberate process layered absurdity with intimacy, resulting in a cinematic ‘residue’ that captures fleeting thoughts, symbols, and primal emotions, inviting viewers to experience the subconscious directly.”
“Through this approach, the director merges form and content, embracing unconventional storytelling to explore layered realities. By challenging viewers to confront perception, reality, and identity, her work offers an experience that resists the constraints of language and embraces the fluid, ambiguous nature of subconscious thought.”
Covamonas’ esoteric and experimental short films have impressed in competition at key international festivals, including Annecy (“Hideouser and Hideouser,” 2019) and Sundance (“Socrates’ Adventures in the Under Ground”). “The Great History of Western Philosophy” is her feature debut.
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