In the Sci-Fi World of ‘Arco’, It’s About ‘Respecting Kids’ Intelligence’

Ugo Bienvenu set out to make “a movie that feels like a hug,” and that impulse is at the center of Arco, an Oscar-nominated animated film opening Thursday in U.S. theaters. The story follows two children from different eras who meet through time travel, moving between 2075, when robots handle most jobs, and an even more distant future where humans live on platforms among the clouds.

The film addresses climate change without descending into apocalypse, suggesting a brighter tomorrow through imagination and innovation. Bienvenu says imagination is “our superpower” and that better futures must first be imagined: “If we want better things to happen, we have to imagine them first.” He resists technical exposition — “Explaining things is so boring,” he has said — and favors a setting near a forest where nature plays a prominent role, yielding hand-drawn backgrounds influenced by writers such as Clifford D.

Simak. His global childhood — in Guatemala, Mexico, Chad and France — seeded his path to animation.

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