Venturi Meaning in ‘Raya and the Last Dragon’: Film Setting Explained

Turns out, Kumandra is inspired by the variety of cultures in Southeast Asia. In fact, the filmmakers took research trips to Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, Indonesia, Cambodia, Singapore, and Malaysia to ground themselves in the cultures they hoped to represent on screen.

“The diversity within the region was, I think, very, very important,” co-director Carlos López Estrada explained to /Film. “We knew [that] in Kumandra we wanted to have [a] similar type of diversity of culture, of peoples, of flavors of our lands. And that’s what allowed us to create a world that was deeply inspired by these cultures.”