Sabel Redemption (partially found unreleased Mexican animated film; 2009)

Status: Partially Found

Sabel Redemption is a 2009 Mexican animated film, written and directed by Benito Fernández (also known for Brijes 3D) and produced by his own studio, Ithrax Producciones in conjunction with Santo Domingo Animation. The film stands out for being one of the attempts to bring adult animation to Mexican cinemas, as well as its high technical quality compared to others of its kind.

Despite the fact that the film was finished in 2009 and scheduled to be released in that year, it never came out in theaters and remains canned by not finding a distributor that would accept it.

Plot

Legends says that in 1490, a noble English merchant was shipwrecked off in the coast of Spain, being saved by a young woman with whom he fell madly in love. When he wanted to escape with her, he was killed by Héctor de Soto, a military man.

More than 700 years later, the nobleman revived to realize that this miracle was caused by a vampire bite, at the same time that Soto was actually a werewolf.

Availability

The film began production in 2006. According to testimonies from those involved in the project, it had a budget of 10 million Mexican pesos ( approximately 1 million dollars at the time). The original plan was to release it in 2009, a year before Brijes 3D, another Benito Fernández' film aimed at a child audience. However, Sabel Redemption was rejected by several distributors as they considered it "too inappropriate" for exhibition to the general audiences, causing that it obtained a mature classification and therefore less public.^[1]

To this day, the film still does not have a theatrical release or in any other format. In the words of the creator and director, it is still canned with the desire to be released at some point. For now, only some videos of the production, leaked scenes and trailers are available. There's also a board game based on the movie.

On January 20, 2021, the Mexican youtuber Yohismitsu Caleón conducted an interview with director Benito Fernández in which more details were given about the film, and noting that there are plans to release it in the future. Fernández would talk about the plot, the production, his personal life and his next film Uma & Haggen; claiming that if it receives the enough support there would be a possibility of finally releasing Sabel Redemption.^[2]