Dali's Disney film appears surreally late

Destino, a collaboration between Salvador Dali and Walt Disney, has finally been completed – 58 years after work on it began.

The animated short film was originally conceived when Dali and Disney met at a dinner party given by studio head Jack Warner, and Dali subsequently spent eight months from 1945 to 1946 working on it, reports the Los Angeles Times.

But financial problems halted the project and it remained in limbo until Walt Disney Co vice-chairman Roy E Disney became interested in finishing it while he was making Fantasia 2000.

Using a journal kept by Dali’s wife GALA, Disney and his animators reconstructed Destino.

“Apparently Dali would come home at night, tell Gala what he and Disney were doing and she’d write it out as a narrative,” said Roy Disney. “It stopped and started because he’d change his mind about things, but it served as a guide.”

The film – “a striking, dream-like collage of images without a conventional narrative,” according to the newspaper – and 22 pieces of original Dali artwork will tour major cities of the world as part of the Dali, Mass Media And Culture exhibit, commemorating the 100th anniversary of the artist’s birth.