I don’t make content for social media. My brain isn’t geared for it. I’ve also never promoted a single film I’ve made over the last 30 years—except for El Tormento de Pablo Pastoral. The reason is that it’s a story much bigger than me, with cultural significance. My reliance on word of mouth isn’t enough for this project.

Ironically, the media attention I’ve tried to generate online didn’t bring as many viewers as talking to people on street corners while I passed out flyers, and this magazine article. Those people made a direct connection with me and respected my dedication.

I continued playing around with online promotional ideas, though, despite not having much of an online presence. I knew the key to finding Pablo’s audience was to humanize these puppets as much as possible, so they stopped being seen as objects.

One night, my friend Xavier, who plays the devious ‘Pedro,’ came to my apartment for a visit. I told him about the ‘ELSA!’ daytime talk show concept, inspired by early ’90s Spanish TV. He loved it, and we started tossing ideas back and forth. The plan was to go full meta and make the Pablo series a fictional, scripted work. The ‘actors’ were regular people with careers and families, with personalities that often contradicted the roles they played on screen.

After that inspiring conversation, I knew I’d have to follow through, but I didn’t have the money to produce it. I put it on the back burner, but just a few weeks later, I learned that Joann Fabrics was going out of business and all of the art supplies I’d need to make the show were 75% off. ‘Shit,’ I thought. ‘Maybe I need to do this right now.’

The next task was getting back in touch with the voice actors I worked with remotely, down in Mexico and South America. If I couldn’t rally them to reprise their original roles, there wasn’t going to be a picture. Fortunately, they all gladly joined. I essentially got the band back together.

I knew the star and host of the program had to be Elsa De La Fuente. I wrote the script with her in mind, and I really enjoyed working with her on the Pablo series. She played Sister Dominga in Chapter Five, with a very stern temperament. In reality, Elsa is hilarious, energetic, kind, and full of jokes. Her support over the last few years has meant a lot to me, and she nailed her performance.