LA premiere screening of Roy del Espacio (1983) at The Philosophical Research Society on November 6th. Co-presented by Trash-Mex.
Trash-Mex co-presents the LA premiere of the new restoration of a long completely lost Mexican animated space opera!
Hot on the heels of its rapturous reception at Fantastic Fest 2026, The Philosophical Research Society's 7th House and Trash-Mex proudly co-present the Los Angeles premiere of the monumental new restoration of ROY DEL ESPACIO (Roy from Space, 1983), a gloriously eccentric, wildly entertaining lost treasure of Mexican science-fiction animation! Missing for more than 40 years, this astonishingly strange adventure—only the third animated feature ever produced in Mexico—has finally returned!
Following the screening, join us for a special panel discussion with animators Brian Smee and Isabelle Aspin, who helped bring the film back to life, and Mexican genre film historians Armando Hernández and Joey Diaz of Trash-Mex, who contributed a new audio commentary to the film's release!
The only feature directed by noted titles and commercials animator Héctor López Carmona, ROY DEL ESPACIO is a wonderfully unclassifiable work of outsider animation, loosely inspired (ahem) by the classic Flash Gordon serials. “I'm Roy from Space. I come from Earth,” announces our helmet-wearing hero with a perfectly straight face (and no, he never removes that helmet). What follows is a nonstop barrage of synthesizer-voiced robots, flying saucers, and battles against the wicked Ming-the-Merciless knockoff King Alom, whose hot-blooded daughter has designs of her own on our intrepid spaceman. Across a succession of increasingly bizarre interplanetary escapades, Roy navigates a universe of treacherous villains, improbable dangers, and wonderfully inexplicable twists and turns.
Produced over the course of three years by a crew composed almost entirely of people with no previous animation experience, ROY DEL ESPACIO is a remarkable testament to the sheer force of creative enthusiasm. Its wonderfully strange, sometimes disorienting animation—recalling such otherworldly oddities as DELTA SPACE MISSION—operates according to a visual logic entirely its own. Faces and body parts constantly shift, expanding and contracting without warning; bodies and feet seem barely connected to floors or walls; characters drift and tumble through space like performers in some extraterrestrial Merce Cunningham choreography. What might conventionally be dismissed as crude or technically imperfect becomes the very source of the film's extraordinary charm. Here, ingenuity and imagination triumph over resources and experience, producing something far more singular than any polished imitation of the Hollywood animation machine. Add a gloriously groove-a-delic, synthesizer-laden score by Ernesto Cortázar, and you've got a genuine treasure of handmade science-fiction cinema.
The film's resurrection is nearly as remarkable as the film itself.
Working with the daughter of original producer Ulises Pérez Aguirre, acclaimed film restoration and distribution label Deaf Crocodile located the surviving 35mm elements at Mexico's Cineteca Nacional and restored the film from its original negative—only to discover that four and a half minutes of unauthorized live-action footage from a Japanese science-fiction production had been inserted into it! Independent animators Isabelle Aspin and Brian Smee were enlisted to create replacement footage, painstakingly recreating the original film's hand-painted cel-animation techniques and idiosyncratic style. Their work accomplishes the remarkable feat of invisibility: the new animation is virtually indistinguishable from the original, finally bringing to life sequences the filmmakers themselves had been unable to realize and fulfilling part of their vision more than four decades later.
And while ROY DEL ESPACIO is a fascinating artifact of Mexican animation history, it's also an absolute blast to experience in a theater with an audience. Its outrageous inventions and boundless enthusiasm inspire collective laughter and astonishment, and there's something deeply endearing about a film so committed to realizing its own impossible vision. You find yourself rooting for it at every turn. More than four decades later, this improbable labor of love is finally reaching audiences its makers could scarcely have imagined—and we're thrilled to give it the big-screen celebration it deserves!Dir. Héctor López Carmona, 1983, 64 mins, Mexico., Spanish w/ English subtitles, All Audiences, Digital.
Purchase Tickets Here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/roy-del-espacio-1983-la-premiere-co-presented-by-trash-mex-tickets-2003588418896
Tickets: $10 (All Screenings Are In Person Only)
Please email events@prs.org or phone 323-663-2167 with any questions.
