El príncipe y el dragón
2013 · 10m · España
Directed by Álex Navarro
Genres: coming-of-age, family, fantasy
Tones: mythic, tender, whimsical
Lucía must overcome her fear of using the toilet like a grown-up. Her mother tells her the story of a prince's epic fight against a fierce dragon, giving the girl a vivid way to become the heroine of her own story.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
A toilet-training narrative dressed up in dragon mythology feels like it's trying to have it both ways—earnest enough that it doesn't subvert the genre, safe enough that it doesn't actually surprise you. The premise wants to be clever but lands in the expected lane.
Navarro demonstrates a precise understanding of how fantasy scaffolding can dignify a child's interior life, working squarely within a well-established tradition of mythic reframing—the formal rigor is there, though the emotional architecture feels measured rather than revelatory.
The genius move here is trusting the metaphor enough to let the dragon fight *actually be* the toilet moment, collapsing the two narratives into one image instead of cutting between them—that structural choice is what makes a 10-minute family film feel inevitable rather than cute.