Before the setting was chosen, before even a single character was imagined, the filmmakers behind Walt Disney Animation Studios’ 60th all-new original feature film Encanto had decided what the heart of their new film would be: family.

Filmmakers knew from the get-go that their story would be about family, and they quickly focused on the role perspective plays in family dynamics.

“It’s a story about how the people who are closest to us, especially family members, don’t always see us—or fully understand us. And likewise, we don’t show people we love our whole selves for many reasons. Our story shows how one member of a family who feels the least seen can learn to see her whole family and ultimately herself, ” says screenwriter and director Jared Bush, who was the co-director/co-writer on Zootopia, and also wrote the screenplay for Moana.

“We thought it would be amazing to tell a story about not just a pair of characters but a large extended family,” says director Byron Howard, the Oscar-winning director of Zootopia and Tangled. “We wanted to celebrate and try to understand how the complex dynamics in big families really work. How well do we know our families? How well do they know us?”

Encanto tells the tale of an extraordinary family, the Madrigals, who live hidden in the mountains of Colombia, in a magical house, in a vibrant town, in a wondrous, charming place called an Encanto. The magic of the Encanto has blessed every child in the family with a unique gift from super strength to the power to heal—every child except one,
Mirabel. But when she discovers that the magic surrounding the Encanto is in danger, Mirabel decides that she, the only ordinary Madrigal, might just be her exceptional family’s last hope.

According to Howard, each of the Madrigal children receive their gifts during a special ceremony. “As each child turns 5,” he says, “a door is produced in their house that opens to an enchanted space. It reveals their magical gift and therefore what their role will be in this family and how they’ll serve the community.”

“Mirabel is all of us,” says Bush. “She is the ordinary member of her family among a bunch of extraordinary, magical people. Many of us can feel like we’re surrounded by superstars in our lives—we can feel intimidated; we can suffer from imposter syndrome. It doesn’t matter who you are or what you’ve achieved—there’s always someone who’s
doing it bigger or better. Mirabel is that character we can all relate to.”

“Mirabel is a people pleaser—she feels this need to compensate for the fact that she didn’t get a gift. She’s always told herself that she’s OK with the dynamic in her family—but deep down, she’s not. She really wants to make a change. Her journey is to recognize her own intrinsic value and find her place within this family,” says co-director and screenwriter Charise Castro Smith (playwright Feathers and Teeth, writer The Haunting of Hill House).

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Mirabel’s story actually began long ago

Her story began when her grandparents, Alma and Pedro, were forced to flee their home with nothing but their newborn triplets. Following the tragic loss of her husband, Alma said a prayer to a candle in a moment of desperation.

“The candle responded to her prayer giving Alma and those who followed safe shelter in a wondrous place called an Encanto,” says producer Clark Spencer, the Oscar-winning producer of Zootopia, Wreck-It Ralph, Lilo & Stitch, and is also Walt Disney Animation Studios President.

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Set in Colombia, Encanto embraces diversity, culture, people and, of course, the music

The location, says Bush, was wholly driven by story. “Early on we knew that we wanted to tell a story about a large extended family with themes of perception and perspective,” says Bush. “So much of Latin America is a combination of Indigenous, African and European heritage. Colombia is considered a ‘crossroads of Latin America’—and we wanted to reflect that within one family, the Madrigals.”

Howard, Bush and Lin-Manuel Miranda—along with Lin-Manuel’s father, Luis, and executive music producer Tom MacDougall—travelled to Colombia in 2018 to explore and soak up the surroundings. Says Howard, “It was a surprise at every turn. Every city, every place was vastly different and incredibly beautiful—Cartagena, Bogotá, Barichara and San Basilio de Palenque—there’s a feeling of magic in many of these places. And it’s a different kind of magic than we’ve seen in our films. The visit to Colombia and the opportunity to be welcomed by so many we met there was really a revelation and inspired so much in our story.”

Magic abounds in Encanto

“Even in our darkest moments, there’s light where you least expect it.” ~ Mirabel

“An ‘Encanto’ is a term sometimes used for a place of magic and heightened spirituality, where magical or extraordinary things can happen,” says Castro Smith. “It’s a place of natural wonder where the landscape is infused with
magical possibility.”

But, says Howard, it’s not your everyday magic. “There’s magic in the world, but it’s grounded in reality,” he says. “Magical realism, an inspiration for our film, is tied to real emotions, real events, and it’s thoughtful and layered. It’s not just an easy answer to your problems, it’s actually a reflection of the experiences you have every day whether you’re enjoying success or struggling.”

Although many of the characters in Encanto have magical gifts, the filmmakers wanted to ground these gifts in reality.

Says Bush, “Our goal was that these characters would be just as compelling if we were to tell the story of this family without any gifts—if there were no magic in the world. We wanted to have extensions of family archetypes that we could all relate to whether it’s the golden child, the rock of the family, the outcast or drama queen. We just crank it up a little and make it come to life in magical ways.”

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Encanto honours Walt Disney Animation Studios’ rich tradition of building stories through music and song

Encanto features eight original songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda, and composing the score is Germaine Franco (Dora and the Lost City of Gold, Little, Tag), who co-wrote songs including Un Poco Loco and Proud Corazón for Disney and Pixar’s Coco

Howard and Bush, who previously teamed up on Disney Animation’s Oscar-winning feature film Zootopia” had hoped to team up on another film—but not just any film.

“After ‘Zootopia,’ we were keen on doing a musical,” says Howard. “We’re musicians—we grew up that way. Jared had just come off ‘Moana’ and had a great experience working with Lin-Manuel, I’d enjoyed directing ‘Tangled,’ so the three of us started talking about working together.”

For Miranda, joining a film at the ground level was particularly appealing, but it was the idea that really drew him in. “It really began with family,” says Miranda. “The notion of a family musical that gets to the complexity and interconnectedness of families was really interesting. In the beginning, we told a lot of personal stories—one of the ongoing themes was how we all cast our family members in certain roles. How do those roles change over time? How do they stay the same?”

Diving into the music of the Colombia-set story proved exciting. “A lot of the rhythms are familiar to me, but the instrumentation and orchestration are different and often unique to Colombia,” says Miranda.

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The Team

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