Leo Matsuda

Leo Matsuda is a Japanese-Brazilian art director, animator, and screenwriter.

With Inner Workings (2016), an animated short that played before Moana, Matsuda became the first Brazilian to direct a short or film for Disney.

Biography Matsuda was born in São Paulo. He worked in advertising at first in Brazil. He later moved to Venice Beach in the greater Los Angeles region, where he lived starting from around 2008. He studied animation at CalArts. He admires the work of famous animators Ward Kimball and Chuck Jones, as well as the comedy of Monty Python, and the filmmakers Jacques Tati and Wes Anderson. While he did some initial work at 20th Century Fox and Pixar, he eventually worked for Disney, including Wreck-It Ralph (2012). Matsuda's animation work for Wreck-it Ralph received a nomination for an Annie Award for storyboarding in an animated feature. He won an internal competition at Disney for who would get to direct the short film that would appear before Moana. The result was the short Inner Workings (2016), which he directed and wrote the script for. This made him the first Brazilian to direct a film for Disney.

In 2018, Matsuda and DreamWorks Animation arranged a deal for Matsuda to produce two films for them, one called Sputnik and the other Yokai Samba. before he was replaced as director by David Derrick Jr. and John Aoshima.

Filmography The Simpsons Movie (2007), animator Rio (2011), junior story artist Wreck-It Ralph (2012), animator Big Hero 6 (2014), animator Zootopia (2016), animator Inner Workings (2016), director, screenwriter Yokai Samba (TBA), director, screenwriter