A Ilha do Céu – I Know How To Direct Your Eyes

WORKS

PORTFOLIO

All
Comics
Design
Environment
Fine Art
Illustration
Movies
Photo
experimental

Dudok de Wit

SENNA 火の鳥

Love Will Rescue You

America in the eyes of an Alien O-1

Collage 83 14

Mestre Gabriel

NUPA

CINEMARK motion graphics

Hand Drawn Animation Design

3D Animation Design

Story Boards

Fievel Goes West

Comics

Illustrations

Experiments

Expeditions

Papaya + Tapioka Crème

Metrotoons

Digital Exercise

Little Airplane

HELLO!
HOW ARE YOU?

Introducere

animation film director & narrative visual artist

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 the entertainment film animation industry, he worked as Supervising Animator for the feature films FIEVEL GOES WEST (Spielberg’s Amblimation) and A GOOFY MOVIE (Disney). He was also Art Director, Supervising Animator and Director at Little Airplane (2015-2017), a provider of animated series for Disney Jr, Discovery Kids and other channels.
Among the various animated short films he directed, the following stand out: ADEUS (1988), chosen by the Clermont-Ferrand Festival as one of the most outstanding Brazilian shorts of all time; a series of animated shorts, with socio-environmental themes, produced at NUPA (2009-2012), a center created and directed by Céu, in São Paulo, to encourage the development of Brazilian animated cinema; LOVE WILL RESCUE YOU (2015), about trafficking (slavery) of children in Burma and Thailand.
Céu’s interest in socio-environmental issues emerges as a theme throughout his creations. He has been conducting field research since 1990 and has been awarded, among others, the VITAE grant for art research from the Rockefeller Foundation and the HOPES FOR THE FUTURE award from IUAPPA/IAS.
From 2019 to 2023, he has developed METRÔTOONS, a broad communication campaign, through animations, illustrations and visual design, for the São Paulo Metrô. The metro operation involves 7.8 million passengers per day, and the campaign created by Céu is considered, according to a survey with users, one of the most efficient actions carried out since the service was founded.

He is currently developing the comic book HET KOSMISCHE RAS, which features the legendary Brazilian F1 driver, Ayrton Senna, as the protagonist.

GET IN TOUCH

CONTACTS

send email to:

ceudellia@gmail.com

SAY ABOUT ME

TESTIMONIALS

Denise Mattar - São Paulo - Brazil - art critic and curator Brazilian Association of Art Critics affiliated

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.

Fernando Meirelles - São Paulo - Brazil - cinema director and member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences of Hollywood

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.

Léa Zagury - Rio de janeiro - Brazil - festival director Anima Mundi

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.

Uli Meyer - London - UK - animation producer and filmmaker

I have known Céu D’Ellia since we first met on the production of An American Tail 2 for Universal Pictures (1988). Céu is not only an outstanding artist and designer, but he has also been working successfully as a producer, running his own company. In both capacities he has worked with me over the years and 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.

Josh Selig - New York City - USA - ceo and creative director Little Airplane

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.

Nancy Beiman - Toronto - Canada - animator and animation teacher Sheridan Institute

(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.

Carlos Augusto Calil - Brazil film teacher ECA-USP

(Secretary of Culture of the city of São Paulo, from 2005 to 2012) 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.