Belgian Animation On The World Stage This Weekend!
A quick overview of what awaits Belgian animation during this Awards weekend, amidst the opening of Brussels Intl. Animation Film Festival
Belgian Animation will be on everyone’s lips this weekend.
And if you don’t believe me, it may be because you don’t even know you’re talking about Belgian animation :-)
As Anima, the Brussels Intl. Animation Film Festival, opens with the Belgian premiere of Memoir of a Snail, eyes will be turned to Paris where many Belgian animation production companies are represented this year at the César.
Co-produced by Les Films du Fleuve, the Dardenne Brothers’ company founded back in 1994, The most precious of cargoes by Michel Hazanavicius is nominated three times for Best Animated Feature, Best Adaptation and Best Original Music.
Opening film at the Annecy Festival back in June after a World premiere at Cannes, the film tells the powerful story of a Polish couple, saving a child that fell from a “death train” directed to the concentration camps.
In fact, it’s impressive to note that all three animated features nominated this year, Flow, The Most Precious of Cargoes and Savages are all co-produced with Belgium.
Flow, an Oscar-contender for both Best Foreign Feature and Best Animation Feature, continues to amaze both critics and audiences worldwide. I was lucky to speak last week with Belgian producer Gregory Zalcman and animation supervisor Pierre Mousquet, and I’ll be watching closely both Friday and Sunday ceremonies with fingers crossed. Flow already is a landmark in indie animation history, and it stands to become much more.
As for Sauvages, Claude Barras’ latest feature co-produced by renowned Panique Productions, its stop-motion is a wondrous achievement, powered by a wonderful team from Swiss, French and Belgian talents.
Last year at Anima, I was lucky to discover its making of with Claude Barras, first assistant director Dorien Schetz, head of production Ludovic Delbecq, but also Christine Polis, lead armatures and head of puppets hospital on set, and sound editor and composer Charles De Ville. You can read it all here on Skwigly Magazine (and if you don’t follow their work already, you should).
Here’s an excerpt from the article :
Diving into the different steps of set building, coordinated by Jean-Marc Ogier (This Magnificent Cake!), several parts of the film were shown. A mesmerizing process from small clay models to full-scale sets built in Rennes, France, before they were sent to Switzerland for the shoot.
Head of Production Ludovic Delbecq (Panique Productions) followed this introduction by taking an in–depth look at this particular co-production setting. European animators, puppeteers, French and Belgian puppets designers and French set builders all gathered in Martigny, Switzerland, for a 4-month shoot in a 2000-square meters empty storage unit, fully redesigned to fit the needs of this unique production. Sixteen full sets, two test sets and one demo-set were built, with 40 to 50 crew members working on site at the peak of production. Shooting took place from March 6 to late September, 2023. A 6-month period which, multiplied by the number of animators ranging from 2 to 10, represents a whopping 225 weeks of animation, according to Delbecq.
How was such a feat accomplished? Thanks to an amazing team, supervised by first assistant director Dorien Schetz, who had previously been working as Studio Production Manager at Belgian Beast Animation studio for more than a decade. With a delightful cheery tone, she took a captivated audience through her breaking sheets and full shooting schedule. “There are more than 800 shots in Sauvages, and it was essential to know, for each, how many puppets were to be used, how many animators, for how long, etc”, explained Schetz while taking us around her 80-columns wide Excel sheet, a both mesmerizing and nightmarish journey.
To continue reading, click here.
On the Shorts side, there’s also plenty to share from Belgium, as Nicolas Keppens, director of Beautiful Men, is currently in Los Angeles, warming up for the Oscars on Sunday. You can follow his journey — and that of his weird yet moving trio — on Instagram.
Here’s an excerpt from an interview we did for Cartoon Brew during the first round of nominations.
Dreams and reality mix within your film, why did you choose to include this fantasy space in the realistic setting of this story?
Nicolas Keppens: In short, because it’s what I like in cinema. I’m a big fan of Federico Fellini, Alice Rohrwacher, and Apichatpong Weerasethakul, amongst others – all filmmakers that use the medium to tell something about the presence in a dreamlike state. What I like to do is explore characters that are very specific, people the viewer could know in real life. Beautiful Men (and also my previous short Easter Eggs) has a story that is very simple, but I put much more elaboration in the characters.
Once these characters and their struggles are known, it turns into a story about their emotions, into their way of perceiving the world around them which is (to me) a dreamlike space. I don’t care too much about plot, I prefer to focus on small stories but with great details in the character description. When we share funny or touching stories about someone, it ends more often than not with, “Ah, what a great, funny, odd… person.” I have some friends that are really good at telling these random stories, and they often use beautiful small metaphors. I try to build my films in the same way.
What was it about this story or concept that connected with you and compelled you to direct the film?
During a business trip in Istanbul, we stayed in a hotel that was in partnership with a hair clinic, which we didn’t know as the trip was organized by the studio I was working for. The first morning, at breakfast, we were surprised to see the other guests in the hotel. Almost every table was occupied by a European bald man, who was there for a hair transplantation, or just received one. It was absurd, but very touching at the same time. This subject was a gateway for me to tell something about masculinity, feeling insecure, and the ability as humans to undertake such a trip.
You can read the full interview here, and Nicolas talking about his favorite shot from the film here.
And, last but not least, let’s not forget the team behind Wander to Wonder, Nina Gantz’s wonder of a short, which has been top-of-mind since it’s first awards, notably at Anima!
You can also read an excerpt from the interviews I did with Nina for Cartoon Brew, just below:
What did you learn through the experience of making this film, either production-wise, filmmaking-wise, creatively, or about the subject matter?
Artistically, I felt I wanted to create a story with greater depth and complexity, which led me to write dialogue for the first time – something I hadn’t explored before. The collaboration with actors was an experience that took the film to a new level, and I’m definitely aiming to continue this way of working in my future films. The theme tune for the kids’ show was also key, as it had to embody one of those shows from the seventies and eighties. Fortunately, my composer Terence Dunn lived through some of it so he nailed that pretty accurately. He also has a relationship with the Brighton Festival chorus so we called on their youth choir because we wanted to create the sense that the kids who watched and wrote into the show were somehow present.
Can you describe how you developed your visual approach to the film? Why did you settle on this style/technique?
Eight years ago I discovered the work of Ray Harryhausen and was inspired by his use of stop motion and live action. I think it stands the test of time and although perhaps it doesn’t look entirely realistic, it has a certain nostalgia and suited the idea for the film very well.
When it came to the visual style, I aimed to create a tv show that felt entirely authentic, so I researched a lot of old shows that had a human presenter interacting with puppets, such as The Sooty Show and Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. It was the research that really informed the visual style of the show. And behind the scenes, I wanted to see the grim reality of their day-to-day lives.
A good way to finish the circle, and come back to the great event that is Anima.
As you may have noticed, this newsletter is a bit hectic, made of bit and pieces from past interviews and present promises. But overall, it showcases the diversity of Belgian animation, which is also, in some way, hectic and wonderful at the same time.
As said, I’ll be waist-deep in the Festival until next Sunday, so there’s no guarantee of a newsletter next Friday. But be sure that a lot of upcoming news and interviews will come from this wonderful period, and who knows, maybe we’ll even run into one another, if you choose to attend the Festival.
I leave you with the teaser of this year’s edition, from the works of German animator Raman Djafari.
Have a great animated weekend!
Kevin