«Élo» is a transmedia project, a journey of imagination and discovery through the eyes of a curious girl with Down syndrome. As she experiences the challenges of everyday life, her adventures transform the world around her.
Élo's universe includes a series, a short film, a feature film, and a collection of animated micro-shorts. It also offers downloadable resources for parents and caregivers, behind-the-scenes content for animation enthusiasts, and a co-production and collaboration model open to everyone who wants to be part of it.
The series follows Élo, a very curious (and stubborn) girl with Down syndrome who lives in a small town in the hills.
Her everyday adventures and challenges (the ones any 7-year-old has) appear in her experience of the world combined with elements created in her powerful imagination. Élo tackles universal themes (autonomy, overstimulation, social connection, fear, discovery, and more), and through her own poetic gaze, the simple becomes extraordinary.
In the world of ÉLO, each character has their own way of seeing, feeling, and relating to the world. Through their bonds, games, and everyday experiences, we discover different ways of communicating, learning, supporting one another, and growing together. They are diverse characters, with different personalities, rhythms, and needs.
In ÉLO, inclusion isn't a topic to be explained: it's part of the characters' lives and of the stories they share.
Élo is introverted and shy, but has a powerful imagination. She observes the things that interest her very attentively, and sometimes needs time to process, in her own way, the events of her daily life.
Throughout the series, she gradually gains autonomy, expands her language, and builds deeper connections with the people around her. Élo grows up creating a world of her own, always following her curiosity and intuition.
Élo's best friend: outgoing, talkative, and quick-witted. He is a bit clumsy and likes to attract attention, and sometimes gets distracted and ignores what Élo needs.
As their friendship deepens, Jano gradually adapts to Élo's rhythms, learning to be patient, observant, and more attentive. His creative spirit remains, and he uses it to find new ways of communicating and playing with her.
A big dog who thinks he is small and has infinite curiosity. A loving companion, his patient presence accompanies Élo, helping her overcome everyday challenges. He never solves things for her, but he is always by her side, even though a stick, a ball, a smell, or something moving in the grass may completely capture his attention.
A loud and unpredictable hen who follows Élo everywhere. She squawks, meddles, and reacts to everything, often exaggerating situations and adding comic chaos.
A loyal companion with no filter and plenty of personality.
Élo's dad, loving and a bit overprotective. He is fully committed to supporting her in her daily challenges, although this often frustrates or overwhelms him.
As the series progresses, he learns to let go, trusts more, and surrenders to the joy of play, discovering how fun it can be to imagine things together with Élo. This connects him with his creative side, and he becomes a more present and relaxed partner in crime on her journey. The network and community he builds around himself support and accompany him.
An expanding collection of animated micro-shorts, designed to be shared on social media and on the YouTube channel: small stories from Élo's everyday life, her adventures, her misadventures, and her particular way of experiencing the world.
Son historias breves, sin grandes discursos, que invitan a mirar el mundo desde otro lugar y a descubrir que cada persona tiene su propio ritmo, su propia manera de sentir y de relacionarse con los demás
Each 7-minute episode is a self-contained adventure story, told through Élo's emotional and sensory lens. They combine her imagination and her reality in a playful and visually expressive way, with a cheerful tone, but also showing her fears and frustrations.
Élo aims to entertain while expanding what and whom we see in children's media. The series seeks to represent childhoods with Down syndrome on screen through its protagonist, while speaking broadly about the complexity of growing up and encouraging audiences to reflect on diversity, empathy, and inclusion without adopting a pedagogical tone.
Its structure is based on short episodes, a short film, and a feature film that address everyday experiences, focusing on the protagonist's perceptual, emotional, and cognitive processes. The series does not translate Élo's experience into a mandate on how to approach disability, but rather invites viewers to get closer to her way of organizing the world.
The adventures and situations Élo experiences are shaped by her perspective and imagination, but they do not center on her disability; rather, it is simply one more characteristic of the character. In this way, inclusion appears as a natural consequence of Élo's universe.
We invite you to use this resource to talk about disability, but we believe that doing so doesn't require centering every conversation on that aspect. Elo explores many themes that touch children's lives in different ways. We encourage conversation to arise as just one more feature. Open-ended questions like "Is there anything that caught your attention?" or "Have you ever experienced something similar to what Elo goes through?" can be enriching.
We invite you to reflect on the ideas we have learned about disability. This series takes a human rights approach, which means taking on the challenge of not reinforcing stereotypes: not being condescending, and not understanding disability as an affliction, a tragedy, or as angels or examples of overcoming adversity.
We are convinced that realities can be transformed. We take the social model of disability as our starting point: the problem lies not in the person and their diagnosis, but in the opportunities for development that their contexts do or do not allow. We invite all of you to get involved in collectively creating more inclusive, accessible, and welcoming realities.
Elo is more than her diagnosis: she has DS, but she also has her own characteristics, interests, and processes. This series does not seek to represent all people with Down syndrome, which we consider neither possible nor desirable. Every person has particularities that cannot be reduced to universal categories.
Making an animated series, feature film, or short film is a complex and labor-intensive process that involves many people from diverse fields: illustrators, screenwriters, actors, animators, musicians… real human beings working with their minds and their hands on lines, shapes, and colors, frame by frame. In the following images and videos, you can get a glimpse of the behind-the-scenes development of Élo's universe.
We're looking for collaborators, producers, and allies who believe in this project.
