Interested in collaborating or have any questions? You can contact me at adelahurtadoconnect@gmail.com!

Latest Exhibitions:

The Walt Disney Family Museum, “It’s a Small World”

An animator and lawyer—what?!

Hello! My name is Adela Hurtado, and I’m an animator, production designer, filmmaker, and lawyer based in New York City. I'm from Miami Beach, Florida, born to immigrants from Trujillo, Peru, and I went to Trujillo every summer growing up. In the 6th grade, I read the classical Chinese novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms in the 6th grade, and while I loved the stories in the novel, I really admired Zhuge Liang. I dubbed him "Zhugey," and wanted to be just like him! I made it my dream to go to his Chengdu temple, and in the meantime I watched films and read classical Chinese plays, novels, and operas. The mix of my Peruvian heritage and Chinese classical literature, along with the sunny art deco Miami Beach, influenced who I am. I also grew up during Nickelodeon’s Golden Age, the Disney Renaissance, Japanese anime coming to the US, Warner Bros. Looney Toons reruns, and more. It was wonderful, and led me to deeply love animation and what it can do for people.

I went to New York University where I studied politics, even taking courses taught by Moss Roberts, who translated RoT3K into English--the same version I lugged around in elementary school! I finally went to China through NYU's program at East China Normal University, and it was a dream come true. There I took up photography and started the Shikumen of Shanghai project.

It was also there that I saw, "The Making of Disney's Sleeping Beauty." I thought, "I hope to be part of something that beautiful one day." I always loved animation. Although I had been researching and loving animated films and shows to an extremely nerdy level since I was a child, thinking it was the most beautiful form of art, my parents encouraged me early on to pursue law so that I could have a stable career. I understood why. However, that changed.

I took my first steps. I earned my J.D. at Fordham Law, where I studied public interest and business law by day and took film, animation, acting, and photography classes at night. I studied at East China University of Political Science and Law, where I continued photography and studied Chinese animation at the Shanghai Animation Museum! In 2018, I was admitted to the NY Bar, and I worked as a lawyer while taking production assistant jobs and animation night classes.

Now I am transitioning from law to a career in animation and film. As a lawyer, I practiced international human rights. In film, I focus on traditional 2D animated projects and production design. I am part of organizations such as Women in Animation and have organized legal workshops for women filmmakers and animators at ANNY. I’ve also had amazing mentors from Rise Up Animation. As a photographer, I’m working on my latest project, The Colors of Trujillo, as well as participating in exhibitions.

I recently graduated from the Yenching Academy at Peking University, with my thesis focusing on Chinese and Latin American animation law and policies to support the industries there. I have also recently returned from Gobelins’ Visual Storytelling Program in Paris, where I worked on my film, Concheperla, for the first time. My dream is to one day direct an animated feature film set in Peru.

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