Disney Pixar Animator Hit With Horrific Child Abuse Charges
An award-winning Disney animator will be in a French courtroom beginning on October 29 for charges of ordering the rape of hundreds of underage girls in the Philippines. Bolhem Bouchiba is accused of sending money electronically to the island nation, garnering suspicion from French authorities. The French government maintains that Bouchiba was paying money in exchange for being able to order the sexual abuse of children, some of whom were as young as three years old.
Elemental Is His Final Movie
The Disney animator has worked on multiple projects for the company and its subsidiary studio, Pixar. At the moment, Bouchiba’s name is not associated with any current projects in production, and his last credit is listed for last year’s Pixar film, Elemental. With the pending trial at the end of the month, it’s not likely that he’ll be working with any animators any time soon, and might well see his storied career totally collapse.
A Long History Of Related Crimes
These charges are not the first time that the Disney animator has been in trouble for sex crimes. In 2019, Bolhem Bouchiba was given a two-year suspended sentence for sexually assaulting the eight-year-old daughter of his partner at the time. While receiving a mere slap on the hand for this criminal act, the courts aren’t poised to be nearly as lenient with the defendant if the charges stick. The French court he will be in front of could well sentence him to up to 40 years behind bars if convicted during his late October trial.
Decades With Disney
Bolhem Bouchiba’s history as a Disney animator is lengthy, going back more than 30 years, to when the company first hired him as an assistant animator for the 1990 film DuckTales, the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp. From there, Bouchiba worked on a variety of Disney cartoon series episodes before being hired as an animator for The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996), Hercules (1997), and Tarzan (1999). His more recent credits include the Walt Disney Animation Studios Short Films Collection (2015), How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (2019), and Elemental (2023).
Created Mr. Incredible
The Disney animator’s efforts earned him a win from the Visual Effects Society Awards for his work on the hit Pixar film The Incredibles. He was nominated for creating the Bob Parr/Mr. Incredible character in the Outstanding Performance by an Animated Character in an Animated Motion Picture. One non-Pixar production he worked on, the 2017 animated short Dear Basketball, was the 2018 Academy Award winner for Best Animated Short, shared by the late Kobe Bryant and Glen Keane.
Bad Behavior On Non-Disney Sets
The allegations against the Disney animator don’t mark the first time that the entertainment giant has been the source of controversy for working with someone accused of sex crimes. In 1995, Disney distributed the Victor Salva film Powder through its Buena Vista Pictures Distribution wing. Unbeknownst to Disney executives at the time, Salva had served 15 months in state prison after pleading guilty to charges stemming from forcing oral sex on the 12-year-old star of another Salva film, 1988’s Clownhouse.
Sources: Cartoon Brew
