Enrico Casarosa

Enrico Casarosa (born 20 November 1971) is an Italian director, screenwriter and storyboard artist. Best known for his work at Pixar, he has directed the short film La Luna (2011) and the feature film Luca (2021), which both were nominated for Academy Awards.

Early life

Casarosa was born in Genoa, Italy, but moved to New York City in his twenties, to study animation at the School of Visual Arts and Illustration at the Fashion Institute of Technology.

Career

Casarosa began his professional career as a background designer and storyboard artist on several animated TV series, including 101 Dalmatians: The Series and PB&J Otter. Before joining Pixar, he worked as a storyboard artist at Blue Sky Studios on Ice Age and Robots.

In 2002, Casarosa joined Pixar, where he worked as a story artist on Cars, Ratatouille, Up and Cars 2. In late 2004, Casarosa started a drawing marathon community called SketchCrawl and has been organizing the event ever since. In 2011, his short film La Luna premiered at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival in France, and was released theatrically with Pixar's Brave in 2012.

He then worked as head of story on The Good Dinosaur when Bob Peterson was directing the project beginning in 2011, and as a story artist on Coco.

Casarosa most recently directed the Pixar Animation Studios film Luca, released on Disney+ on 18 June 2021, in the United States. The film received generally positive reviews from critics for its nostalgic feel and acting and the film won a Hollywood Critics Association award for Best Picture.

In October 2022, Cararosa was confirmed to be developing another original Pixar feature film.

Personal life

Casarosa currently resides in San Francisco with his wife Marit and daughter Fio.

Filmography

Films

Year	Title	Director	Story	Story Artist	Other	Voice Role	Notes
2002	Ice Age	Template:No	Template:No	Template:Yes	Template:No
2005	Robots	Template:No	Template:No	Template:Partial	Template:No
2006	Cars	Template:No	Template:No	Template:Partial	Template:No
2007	Ratatouille	Template:No	Template:No	Template:Yes	Template:No
2009	Up	Template:No	Template:No	Template:Yes	Template:No
2011	Cars 2	Template:No	Template:No	Template:Yes	Template:No
2015	The Good Dinosaur	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:Yes		Additional Story Supervision
2017	Coco	Template:No	Template:No	Template:Yes	Template:Yes		Pixar Senior Creative Team
2018	Incredibles 2	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:Yes
2019	Toy Story 4	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:Yes
2020	Onward	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:Yes
	Soul	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:Yes
2021	Luca	Template:Yes	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:Yes	Card Player / Angry Fisherman
2022	Turning Red	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:Yes
	Lightyear	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:Yes
2023	Elemental	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:Yes
2024	Inside Out 2	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:Yes
2025	Elio	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:Yes
2026	Toy Story 5	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:Yes

Shorts

Year	Title	Director	Writer	Story Artist	Executive Producer
2011	La Luna	Template:Yes	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:No
2016	Piper	Template:No	Template:No	Template:Yes	Template:No
2021	Ciao Alberto	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:Yes

Featurettes and TV

Year	Title	Role
1996	Princess Gwenevere and the Jewel Riders	13 episodes Background design, storyboard revision
1997	The Secret of Anastasia	Direct-to-video Lead character model designer, background layout designer
	The Amazing Feats of Young Hercules
1997–1998	101 Dalmatians: The Series	23 episodes Storyboard artist, storyboard revision artist, designer
1998–2000	PB&J Otter	18 episodes Background artist, storyboard artist

Bibliography

• The Adventures of Mia, Volume One (2001) graphic novel
• Fragments (2001) art book with Ronnie Del Carmen
• The Adventures of Mia, Volume Two (2004) graphic novel
• Fragments Intermezzo (2004) art book
• Flight, Volume One (2004) part of a larger comic anthology
• Three Trees Make a Forest (2007) exhibition art book with Ronnie Del Carmen and Tadahiro Uesugi
• Totoro Forest Project (2008) with Daisuke Tsutsumi, Ronnie Del Carmen, and Yukino Pang
• The Venice Chronicles (2008)
• Disney Picture Book: La Luna (2012) in support of La Luna
• Disney Pixar: The Art of Luca (2021) in support of Luca

Awards and nominations

Association	Year	Category	Work	Result	Ref(s)
Academy Awards	2012	Best Animated Short Film	La Luna	Template:Nom
	2022	Best Animated Feature	Luca	Template:Nom
Annie Awards	2016	Outstanding Achievement for Storyboarding in a Feature Production	The Good Dinosaur	Template:Nom
	2022	Outstanding Achievement for Directing in a Feature Production	Luca	Template:Nom
British Academy Film Awards	2022	Best Animated Film	Luca	Template:Nom
Children's and Family Emmy Awards	2022	Outstanding Short Form Program	Ciao Alberto	Template:Nominated
Golden Globe Awards	202	Best Animated Feature Film	Luca	Template:Nom

Special projects

In 2008, Enrico Casarosa (along with Ronnie del Carmen, Daisuke Tsutsumi and Yukino Pang) initiated the Totoro Forest Project, a fundraising exhibition/auction to support the non-profit Totoro Forest Foundation. This initiative also produced a corresponding art book reprinting the various pieces contributed and included the likes of James Jean, Charles Vess, Iain McCaig and William Joyce among others.

External links

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