‘The Gazelle Gazette’ Builds A Sports-Media Nightmare Out Of Newspaper (EXCLUSIVE TRAILER)

Gacela Gazette is a Chilean short about a promising runner who is consumed by the public persona created for her by the media, rendered through a world made of newsprint and pixilation. Co-directed by

Newspaper does not remain merely a background prop in Gacela Gazette. As promising runner Gisela Cortes keeps winning, she becomes widely known by the nickname “Gazelle” given to her by the media, and the coverage digs into her life beyond the track. The film follows the athlete as she gradually disappears beneath the persona created by the media.

A Screen Where Paper Covers Reality

Co-directed by Simon Bucher and Cote Ramirez, the film uses pixilation to place real performers in spaces made from newspaper. The letters and surface of the paper are both the texture of sports reporting and a material that encloses the character. The collision between real bodies and layers of newsprint visually concretizes how attention directed at a sports star can overwhelm an individual’s voice.

A Short Expanded from a Brief Production Experiment

The first version of the film was made for the 2025 Santiago 48-Hour Film Project. The production team then spent about a year printing frames on paper and physically intervening in the images, while adding experiments with stop-motion and post-production to expand the texture and sound of the newspaper world. The completed five-minute short is scheduled to screen in the Animamundi section of the 33rd Valdivia International Film Festival, with Macarena Barros playing “Gazelle.”

The Boundary Between Sports Reporting and the Individual

The core of Gacela Gazette lies not in sports itself but in the narratives created by victory. As a name and image circulate rapidly, the athlete faces a growing risk of being reduced to a public character. Rather than explaining this tension, the film shows it through the newspaper-built environment’s movement as it invades and devours the character.

Source: Cartoon Brew · FICValdivia program introduction