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FILMS
Documentaries
For me, the approach to scoring a documentary is not so different from scoring a narrative film: in both, the music needs to serve the story and connect with its emotional world. Documentaries, however, often explore deeply personal or complex subjects, which allows me to dive further into the emotions behind the story. With voice-over playing such an important role in many documentaries, I am especially conscious of when and how the music enters—knowing when to support the narrative, when to step back, and when silence can say more.
JAGUAR SPIRIT
DOCUMENTARY · BOLIVIA
Original Score by Micaela Carballo
ABOUT THE FILM
Jaguar Spirit follows an investigation into the illegal jaguar trade in Bolivia and its impact on one of Latin America's most iconic species.
Directed by: Emi Kondo
Original Score: Micaela Carballo
Production: World Animal Protection / National Geographic Society
THE MUSICAL APPROACH
Jaguar Spirit was a particularly meaningful project for me because its story explores an unspoken conflict that is, sadly, all too common across Latin America. Working with a Latin American creative team made the experience even more personal, and I wanted the music to help bring this story to audiences beyond the region.
My approach to the score was built around two contrasting musical worlds. On one side is the beauty of the Bolivian landscape and the jaguar in its natural environment; on the other is the violence and darkness surrounding the illegal hunting of jaguars and the trade of their body parts. I wanted these two realities to have distinct musical identities, while allowing them to gradually collide.
For the natural world, I created a palette inspired by Latin American sounds, incorporating charango, different types of flutes, small guitars, organic textures and rhythmic elements to evoke the landscape and the presence of the jaguar without simply illustrating what we see on screen. The music has space to breathe and allows the beauty of the environment to come through.
As the story turns toward the violence against the animals, the musical language begins to fracture. The organic sounds become distorted, textures become darker and more unstable, and familiar instruments are transformed into something increasingly unsettling. I wanted the audience to feel that the natural balance established at the beginning of the film was being violated.
Documentary scoring requires particular sensitivity because the images, real events and voice-over already carry so much emotional and narrative information. I therefore had to be very conscious of when to write, when to pull back, and when to let silence speak. Rather than telling the audience what to feel, I wanted the music to enter underneath the story and deepen what was already there.
This idea reaches its fullest expression in the end credits. Instead of returning to the beauty of the opening, the music remains distorted and unresolved, a musical representation of a reality that has not yet been repaired. The story may have ended, but the conflict has not. For me, the score needed to leave the audience with that uncomfortable awareness: the problem is still there, and the story still needs to be heard.
LEAF ARCHITECTS
ABOUT THE FILM
Leaf Architects unveils bats as you’ve never seen them before—tiny, furry, bright-white creatures that transform rainforest leaves into extraordinary living architectural designs. Through the eyes of biologist Bernal Rodríguez, who has dedicated decades to studying these hidden home builders, the film reveals astonishing behaviors captured on camera for the very first time: from delicate construction techniques to the vital role bats play in regenerating tropical forests. Blending breathtaking imagery with a story of passion and discovery, Leaf Architects invites audiences to witness the secret lives of bats and the wonders of nature they sustain.
https://ticotimes.net/2026/04/06/costa-rican-film-leaf-architects-nominated-for-santiago-wild-film-festival
THE MUSICAL APPROACH
Leaf Architects called for a very different musical language. Because the film follows the discovery of a beautiful and fascinating species, I wanted the score to feel bright, playful and full of movement, reflecting the energy and curiosity of the bats as they move through their environment.
I approached the bats almost as characters, creating different musical personalities for the adults and the ybaby bats. The kalimba became the central instrument of the score, its bright and delicate sound helping me capture their playful nature, while rhythmic patterns and constantly moving textures reflected the speed, agility and unpredictable movement of their flight. I wanted the music to feel as if it were moving alongside them rather than simply accompanying the images.
The score also shifts briefly into a darker musical world when a snake attacks the bats. This is the only moment in the film where the audience is meant to experience real danger and fear.
The contrast was important to me: most of the score celebrates the beauty, energy and discovery of the bats, while this brief darker passage reminds us that their world is also fragile and unpredictable.
Animation
Animation gives me the freedom to create a musical world alongside the visual one. Depending on the film and the director's vision, the music can go in almost any direction—from large orchestral landscapes to intimate, playful sounds or completely unique instruments and invented sonic worlds. I enjoy exploring the sounds, rhythms and textures that can give each character and environment its own personality, and using music to interact closely with movement and action. At the same time, the score needs to go beyond what we see on screen: it should reveal something about the characters, their emotions and the world they inhabit. For me, the challenge is to create a musical language that feels as imaginative and alive as the animated world itself, while always remaining connected to the emotional story.
NORBERT
ABOUT THE FILM
Norbert is a GOYA 2026 nominated film about an incompetent spy in a drab, bureaucratic, and dreary nation. Its rulers dream of conquering their colorful neighbor—a small, cheerful country where everything runs in reverse amidst total, absurd chaos, a state of affairs that makes its inhabitants incredibly happy. Despite his utter ineptitude, Norbert becomes a key figure in thwarting his own government's plans. Alongside his eccentric companions, he shares in adventures, fun, and danger as he attempts to save Colorlandia and, above all, seeks his own happiness.
Director(s): José Corral Llorente
Screenwriter(s): José Corral Llorente
Cinematography: Chema Hernández and Ricardo Pérez Suarez
Music: Micaela Carballo
Editing: Alejandra Beyron
Sound: Paloma Huelín
Art Director: Borja Muñoz Gallego
Executive Producer: Jose Ignacio La Casa, Felipe Urtizberea
Runtime: 75 min.
Cast: (Voices) Fernando Cabrera, Olga Velasco, Eduardo Gutiérrez, Javier Sáez, Isabel Donate, Sandra Jara Awards: Premiere at the 2024 Seville European Film Festival
THE MUSICAL APPROACH
https://cinemagavia.es/micaela-carballo-entrevista-compositora-norbert/
The music for Norbert is built around two contrasting musical worlds. The first is the world of Agatha, a luthier who builds her own instruments and is constantly experimenting with sound. For her musical language, I wanted to explore the idea that music could come from anything around her. I recorded and experimented with everyday objects—hammers, saws, pieces of wood, tools and other everyday materials—and transformed their sounds into musical elements. The boundary between sound design, rhythm and music became intentionally blurred, reflecting Agatha's inventive and hands-on way of creating.
This idea becomes especially important as Agatha builds the large machine that appears at the end of the film. Every small object and mechanism that makes up the machine needed its own sound, so I created a musical and sonic identity for each of its moving parts. When the machine finally comes to life, all of these sounds come together in the final musical sequence: balloons, tools, objects and everyday materials become part of the music itself. What begins as individual sounds gradually becomes a complete musical world.
The second musical world is Colorlandia, a colorful, chaotic and upside-down universe where everything feels slightly unpredictable. For this world, the director wanted the music to be inspired by 1940s jazz and swing. Three musicians who appear as characters in the story became the foundation of this musical language, so I built much of the score around the instruments they play, trumpet, saxophone and drums. Their music helps define the personality of Colorlandia while also becoming part of the storytelling.
The challenge was to make these two worlds feel completely different while allowing them to coexist within the same film: Agatha's world grows out of the physical sounds of the objects she creates, while Colorlandia lives in a colorful, swinging and wonderfully chaotic musical universe. By the end of the film, these ideas come together through the machine, where everyday objects are transformed into music and the boundary between the physical world and the musical world almost disappears.
DUBICEL
ABOUT THE FILM
STOP MOTION I 2D
Dubicel is a cosmic boy who lives alone locked in a galactic dome. His greatest wish is to be able to open his large window to see the stars and constellations that he dreamed of so much.
Directed by Yashira Jordán
Co-directed: Igor Gopkalo Streiff
Original Idea: Mauro Escobar
Screenwriters: Yashira Jordán, Igor Gopkalo Streiff, Mauro Escobar, Matías Paradela
Script: Anamaría Aguirre Chourio Intro Narración María Laura Ruggiero
Art Departament: Matías Paradela Diseño Industrial Jeremías Morello
Original Music: Micaela Carballo
Editing: Yashira Jordán, Hernan Moyano
THE MUSICAL APPROACH
Dubicel was a particularly interesting project because the music was composed before the animation was fully finished. Rather than creating the score to follow completed images, I composed the music first, and the final 2D animation was then developed around the musical timing and ideas. This created a very close relationship between the score and the visual world, with the music helping shape the rhythm and movement of the film.
The director's musical references were John Williams and Danny Elfman, which led us toward a rich and expressive orchestral language. To achieve the scale and color we were looking for, I wrote for the full orchestra and recorded the score with the Bratislava Symphony Orchestra. The orchestral palette allowed me to move between moments of action, energy and adventure and more intimate, contemplative passages as the story unfolds.
One of the most distinctive elements of the score is the music associated with the Dome, which I imagined as a sound coming from another planet. Rather than functioning simply as an underscore, this music represents something internal to the character, a musical expression of his mind and his inner world as he moves through his personal journey. The score becomes part of the storytelling itself, accompanying not only what happens around him, but also what he experiences within himself.
The score for Dubicel received three awards for Best Original Score: the Golden Nugget Film Festival (UK), the NYCA New York Cinematography Award (New York), and the Buenos Aires International Film Festival (Argentina), all in 2019.
Fiction
In fiction, I like to begin with the world of the film and, especially, with the psychology of its characters. For a drama, I try to go beneath the surface of the story and explore the deepest emotions of the characters, using music to express feelings that may not be spoken or visible. For romance, comedy, or other genres, the musical language can take many different directions, and I enjoy researching styles, sounds, locations and time periods that can give the film a particular color and identity. I always work closely with the director to understand not only what they want to hear, but what the music can say that the story, dialogue and images cannot say on their own. My goal is to find a musical language that feels inseparable from the characters and the world of the film.
LA INMENSIDAD
ABOUT THE FILM
La Inmensidad is the film adaptation of the play written by Sabrina Odoguardio and Leandro Piccolo about the Italian poet Giacomo Leopardi.
The adaptation was developed together with Micaela Carballo, the composer of the original score, and consisted of transforming the dialogue into physical actions, creating a kind of silent film filled with musical and sonic atmospheres. As the idea evolved, the character of Leopardi became the dramatic concept at the heart of La Inmensidad. In this way, a new character emerged, one who had nothing directly to do with Leopardi, but was inspired by many ideas, events from his life, and his writings.
The story centers on Paolina and Antonio, two siblings who accompany Giacomo, a friend, during his final days of life. Desires, dreams, and reality intertwine in an atmosphere struggling against the greatest obstacle to making them possible: time.
https://www.escribiendocine.com/noticias/2023/01/22/15261-la-inmensidad-de-sabrina-odoguardio-se-mezcla-en-los-estudios-abbey-road-de-londres
https://cinemagavia.es/la-inmensidad-pelicula-critica-estreno/
THE MUSICAL APPROACH
I began working on La Inmensidad with the director from the very beginning of the project, during the COVID-19 pandemic. At the time, I was in a deeply introspective period, composing freely and exploring emotional pieces that reflected the feeling of isolation and uncertainty. One of those pieces eventually became the main theme of the film, and it was also the first piece of music the director used to begin editing the film. From that moment, the music became part of the creative process from the very beginning.
For the rest of the score, I was living in London, where I recorded most of the music with live musicians, completing the final mix at Abbey Road Studios.
One of the central ideas was to create a musical world of memories in the forest, memories that exist somewhere between reality and imagination, leaving the audience unsure whether they actually happened or only exist in the character's mind. For these scenes, the music needed to become almost part of the sound design, so I worked with dark textures and processed sounds that blend with the wind and natural sounds of the forest. The live strings brought an organic and human quality to these memories, while the electronic elements allowed me to blur the boundaries between reality, memory and imagination. As the story progresses, this musical world evolves together with the character's emotional journey.
The main theme is heard primarily in the present of the story, while another piece, Introspection, was one of the final elements I added to the film. It brings together the accumulated emotions of the character as he approaches the end of his life, almost as a reflection of everything he has experienced.
Another important musical concept came from the film's exploration of time moving backwards. In one scene, the character shaves and the action subtly unfolds in reverse, creating the feeling of moving back through time. I translated this idea into the music by reversing and transforming sounds, creating a sense of regression and disorientation. The character does not want to die, and in this movement backwards he finds a kind of refuge in the past, a place where he can escape the present and return to his memories.
The score therefore became another layer of the character's inner world: sometimes a memory, sometimes an imagined place, and sometimes a reflection of his desire to escape time itself.
HERMANADOS
ABOUT THE FILM
Hermanados (2024) is an Argentine comedy-drama film directed by Sebastián Suárez and Diego Morel. It tells the story of Antonio, a young man with Down syndrome who inherits a fortune following the sudden death of his mother, while a lawyer attempts to take advantage of his situation.
The film explores themes of family, vulnerability, trust, and human connection through an emotional story that balances drama and comedy.
https://www.filmaffinity.com/es/film427529.html
https://cinenacional.com/pelicula/hermanados
THE MUSICAL APPROACH
The musical identity of Hermanados was built around traditional Argentine tango, following the producer's vision and the central role tango plays in the story. Since Antonio is a tango dancer and the film culminates in a tango competition, I wanted the score to feel deeply connected to the tradition of Argentine dance music. I composed original tango pieces inspired by the language, rhythm and character of traditional tango, with the bandoneon as the central voice of the soundtrack.
To preserve the authenticity and intimacy of the music, I chose to work with a small ensemble of live musicians, recording the entire score in Argentina. This allowed the performances to retain the organic character and expressive nuances that are so important to tango.
The music takes a different direction for the final competition. Rather than staying within the traditional tango language, I wanted this moment to feel contemporary and reflect a new generation of tango, so I created an electrotango piece that combines the identity of tango with a more modern sound.
The score moves between tradition and contemporary expression, using tango not simply as a musical style, but as an essential part of Antonio's identity and the emotional world of the film.