Céu D’Ellia is an Italian Brazilian, fluent in English, Portuguese, and French.
His professional experience, in Brazil, the United States, France and England, is in all areas of animated film production, working as a screenwriter, animator, designer, director and producer. He began his career directing and animating commercials for the biggest advertising agencies in Brazil, for which he won important awards.
In 1988 he released his first experimental short film, FAREWELL, which received many awards and was chosen by the Clermont-Ferrand Festival in 2004 as one of the most outstanding Brazilian shorts of all time.
He began his international career in 1989, working in London, on animation clips and on the animated feature FIEVEL GOES TO THE WEST, produced by Steven Spielberg.
Céu is passionately involved in environmental issues, which emerge as a theme throughout his work. Awarded the Rockefeller Foundation VITAE Art Scholarship in 1994, he began researching environmental themes since 1990. In 1996, he received the international scientific award Hopes for The Future for a Sustainable World, through IUAPPA/IAS, for proposing a set of ethical principles in the relationships between mass communication, culture, and the environment.
From 2009 to 2012, with the support of the São Paulo Municipal Department of Culture, he created and directed NUPA, a center to encourage the development of Brazilian animated cinema, producing films with content based on socio-environmental issues.
From 2019 until today, he has developed METRÔTOON, a communication campaign, through animations, illustrations, and visual design, for the São Paulo Metro. The subway operation involves 7.8 million passengers per day, and the campaign carried out by Céu is considered, according to a survey carried out with users, one of the most efficient actions carried out since the service was founded.
Other highlights are animation supervision for A GOOFY MOVIE (Disney, Paris, 1994-95), the comic album ZU KINKAJÚ (2013), the independent animated short LOVE WILL RESCUE YOU (2015), about trafficking (slavery) of children in Burma and Thailand, and art direction, directing consultancy, and episode direction for P. KING DUCKLING (LAP & UYoung, NYC, 2015-17).
His professional career began in Brazil in 1979, directing and animating advertising, institutional and informative films. He also created characters and illustrations for several campaigns. Since then, he has been producing award-winning works for clients such as: Banco Itaú, Carrefour, Cinemark, Coca-Cola, Flix, Fuji-Films, General Motors, Gessy Lever, Kraft Foods, Nestlé, among others.
In 1988, he completed his first experimental animated short, Adeus (Farewell). Intended for an adult audience, the film generated controversy, but also received national and international awards. Sixteen years after its release, it was chosen by the acclaimed Clermont Ferrand International Short Film Festival as one of the 25 best short films ever produced in Brazil. And in 2018, by ABRACCINE (Brazilian Association of Film Critics), as one of the 100 essential Brazilian animated films. As in other experimental films that he would produce, he experimented in Farewell with narrative, editing, animation technique and visual innovation.
Céu moved to London from 1989 to 1991, where he worked as designer and animator in commercials for UK TV and music videos for MTV Japan. He joined Spielberg´s animation studio as animation supervisor working for Amblimation, a company that would be renamed Dreamworks a couple of features later. Since then, Céu has worked with other studios and artists in many productions: Disney Studio, Dudok de Wit, Joanna Quinn, Little Airplane, Matthew Kelly & Uli Meyer, among others. Céu has also lived in Paris, Rio and New York City, and currently moves between São Paulo and Brussels.
His interest in ecological themes, children and cultural matrices motivated him to create stories and characters for children. In 1994 he received his first research grant, the VITAE Grant from the Rockefeller Foundation. Over the years, inspired by his travels in the wild regions of South America and his experiences with indigenous people, Céu created characters such as MãmMãmBugé Yandu, Nana Banana and Zu Kinkaju, featured in pilot films, comics, and documentaries.
From 2015 to 2017 Céu worked as Episode Director & Art Director in New York City, at Little Airplane Productions. He also provided consultancy in animation and direction, fully participating in the first season of the TV animated series for children, P. King Duckling. The series, 52 x 13, was released in November 2016 at Disney Jr. According to Eurodata TV, in December 2016 the show was already among the ten most popular programs for children in the USA television.
In 2014, the International Animation Festival in Rio, Anima Mundi, chose Céu D’Ellia to be one of the 2014 Honored Artists. The others were Bob Balser (Yellow Submarine), Eric Goldberg (Aladdin) and the Guillaume Brothers (Max & Co).
NUPA (São Paulo Animation Center), an animation production house fostering a free school-studio center, was created, and directed by Céu, along almost four years. The center was at CCJ Youth Cultural Center, in the suburbs of São Paulo. It provided an opportunity for students without money to become animation professionals. Its production was quite successful, with all film content discussing and developing awareness about social-environmental issues in São Paulo
Motivated by concern for children and environment issues, as well as his experience of how consumer habits are influenced by advertising and film entertainment, Céu wrote a paper with a proposal for ethical principles for mass media communication. In 1996 it won the Hopes for the Future for a Sustainable World award, from IUAPPA/IAS. Initially with ten principles, after tests were conducted, Céu summarized it to only three: Eco Efficiency, Biophilia & Key Question.
At the time Céu started to work, there were no animation schools in Brazil. Even the English Bibliography was quite short. He is a self-taught artist who learned mainly from frame-by-frame observation of old super-8 films. In 2008, Céu received a bachelor’s degree from Braz Cubas Brazilian University, with recognized merits for knowledge. But even before that he was working as a Guest University Instructor in Santa Maria (design,1993), the ECA-USP University of São Paulo (introduction to animation, 2002) and PUC, Catholic University of São Paulo (in the semiotics postgraduate course 2007, 2011 and 2012).
Since 1985 Céu has dedicated part of his time to volunteer in social causes. Besides personal aspects involved, Céu believes that such activities contribute to his experience improving the application of human values and emotions in his work. Céu started working with health care activities for poor families in rural areas of Brazil. From 1994 to 2003, he participated in an ecological NGO, and from 2001 to 2014, in an NGO that develops activities to stimulate self-esteem and the positive potential of children at social risk.
"I have known Céu since 1988. He is not only an outstanding artist and designer, but has also been working successfully as a producer. In both capacities he has always delivered sterling work, professional and reliable. Céu has that rare gift of understanding both the needs of the artist and the demands of a production. I hope to be able to work with him again in the not too distant future."
"Céu D'Ellia's works are notable for the precision and refinement of their compositions, and, although they have characteristics that refer them to a fantastic universe, they are, in fact, conceptual investigations, which reveal a deep anguish, permeated with irony, in the face of the increasingly idiosyncratic world in which we live."
"Céu is not only extraordinarily versatile and talented, but he also has the unusual creative ability to develop new ways of approaching the audience and the theme of a film. I especially admire his short films, and his production at NUPA, from 2009 to 2012."
"Céu’s design and animation work is among the very best I’ve ever seen. I was deeply impressed by his ability to work well with both the pre-production team in New York and the animation team in China. His leadership ability, combined with visual acuity, is very special. He has a wide range of design talents, ranging from animation to photography and visual arts."
"Céu is an artist of many facets and among few he is a painter, an animator and a documentary filmmaker. His creations are precise, powerful, intense and deep. It amazes me how he easily can produce a beautiful detailed work or a series of astonishing fast drawings that brilliantly comes to life in suspended or projected animation."
"(In all the films we have worked on together), I have been impressed by how Céu maintains a high standard of work and acting, equivalent to artists who have been trained in animation programs such as the California Institute of the Arts, Sheridan College, and the Ecole Des Gobelins, in Paris. What's most notable is that he is a self-taught animator, and has excelled artistically, working with artists from 21 different countries."
"At NUPA, Céu integrated professional training for young people on the outskirts with the passionate collaboration of great artists from the city. He opened discussions on city themes, such as literature, mobility, and the environment. All this, while producing beautiful animated shorts, which now enrich the municipal collection."
Animation films for any kind of media
Development of visual narratives
Art visualizations and depictions
