The Guide

The Guide follows a young woman drawn into a dreamlike world guided by the voice of her grandmother. As she moves through painted forests and fragments of family memories, she slowly uncovers moments connected to her family’s cardiovascular history and the invisible risks passed through generations.

At the center of the story is her grandfather, whose presence accompanies the film through melody and memory until a sudden shift reveals a traumatic moment from the past: his heart attack. The narrative then returns to the present, where awareness becomes action through a conversation with a doctor and the recommendation to test her Lp(a) levels.

Rather than relying on direct medical language, the film approaches its subject through metaphor, atmosphere, and emotional storytelling. Memory behaves almost like a living environment, where music, color, and family presence guide the audience through the narrative.

The visual approach intentionally balances softness and realism, allowing the emotional weight of the story to emerge naturally. The result is a healthcare film that feels cinematic and personal, creating space for reflection while still delivering a clear and important message.

To support the emotional intimacy of the story, the production embraced a highly tactile visual approach that blended handmade techniques with contemporary animation workflows. Backgrounds were painted on paper, physically assembled, photographed, and integrated into a frame-by-frame animated pipeline.

Rather than pursuing an overly polished or synthetic aesthetic, the team preserved texture, imperfections, and materiality throughout the film. The process allowed the visuals to carry the same emotional sensitivity present in the narrative itself, reinforcing the feeling of memory, nostalgia, and human connection embedded in every scene.

The use of paper and painting also became an important emotional device within the project itself. These are materials deeply connected to childhood, family, and early forms of creativity: something almost universally familiar. That tactile quality helped bring an additional layer of nostalgia and emotional warmth to the film, making the memories portrayed on screen feel more intimate, fragile, and human.

Director Andrea Devia-Nuño approached The Guide as both an emotional journey and a visual meditation on family legacy. Her direction focused on creating a world that felt intimate, immersive, and emotionally grounded while still carrying the clarity required for healthcare communication.

Final Frontier also collaborated with Emmy Award-winning artist Margherita Premuroso, whose painted paper environments became a central part of the film’s visual identity. Her handcrafted work brought warmth and fragility to the world of The Guide, helping transform the project into something that feels closer to an illustrated memory than a conventional animated campaign.

Music plays a central role in The Guide, carrying the emotional thread that connects memory, family, and loss throughout the film. Produced by DaHouse, the soundtrack features musician Gustavo Bertoni, vocalist, guitarist, and lead composer of the band Scalene, reinterpreting Wayfaring Stranger, a traditional American folk and gospel song whose origins trace back to the early 19th century.

The choice of song brings a powerful layer to the film. Wayfaring Stranger speaks of passage, hardship, longing, and the journey toward home and loved ones, themes that mirror the emotional arc of the story with striking precision. In Bertoni’s restrained and intimate version, the melody becomes less of a soundtrack and more of a memory itself, guiding the viewer through the relationship between family history, loss, and awareness.

There is also a personal resonance in Bertoni’s connection to the project. Born with a congenital heart condition, he first came into contact with singing as part of his childhood development, a path that would eventually lead him into music. That biographical connection gives his interpretation an added emotional weight, making the song feel not only narratively precise, but deeply human.

The track was also released as a special Vinyl Edition, extending the life of the film’s music beyond the screen and into a collectible physical object.