3 months ago
Oscar victor Andrew Ruhemann has returned to nan director’s chair for “The Day I Became a Bird.”
His first short successful 13 years, based connected a book by Chabbert Ingrid, will spot a boy who falls successful emotion – pinch a woman that only has eyes for birds. Desperate to get her attention, he comes up pinch a alternatively different plan.
“I was astatine nan Bologna Children’s Book Fair and that’s wherever I recovered this book. I thought it was a very intriguing image: Why is location this kid successful a vertebrate costume? It moved me,” he says.
Ruhemann’s erstwhile short, “The Lost Thing,” brought him an Academy Award successful 2011, shared pinch Shaun Tan.
“With ‘The Lost Thing,’ it was nan first book I saw astatine that fair. I felt a small tingle astatine nan backmost of my spine and said to myself: ‘This is going to beryllium my first film.’ It each happened successful a very akin way,” he laughs.
“You could opportunity this communicative is astir first emotion aliases astir being existent to yourself, but it’s conscionable 1 layer. This woman is capable to link pinch quality successful a measurement he doesn’t rather understand. He gets a sensation of thing transcendent,” he says astir his protagonist.
“The Day I Became a Bird,” produced by Passion Pictures pinch nan support from Epic MegaGrants, will beryllium “teased” astatine Annecy earlier embarking connected a show run.
Despite taking a break from directing, Ruhemann has kept himself engaged arsenic laminitis and executive imaginative head of Passion Pictures. The company, pinch teams successful London, Paris, New York and Barcelona, boasts a Passion Animation division, pinch caller credits including Netflix’s “Love, Death, & Robots.”
“I ever opportunity I americium lucky: I don’t person to nonstop for a living. But I do emotion it. I emotion it if I americium passionate astir nan stories I want to tell,” he says.
“There is this changeless hostility betwixt trying to beryllium commercialized and trying to make art. It has ever been for illustration this successful my career. After I made ‘The Lost Thing,’ I had to put my producer’s hat connected and that took maine distant for a agelong time. But suddenly, a small abstraction opened up and I thought I was ready.”
At Annecy, Ruhemann will besides reside nan assemblage during A Studio Focus panel, Finding Space for Creativity, Magic, and Poetry pinch Passion Pictures, on June 14. It’s thing he believes successful arsenic well, calling his upcoming movie “an outburst of poesy and magic.”
A movie from Academy Award-winning head Andrew Ruhemann, produced by Passion Pictures, pinch nan support from Epic MegaGrants.
“We support hitting each these large bumps successful our world. There’s warfare successful Ukraine, we person been done nan pandemic, we are now successful recession and person to woody pinch a exile crisis, ambiance situation and immoderate absurd authorities successful our country. I person been nether a adjacent spot of unit to commercialize our workplace and deed definite targets, but I don’t deliberation companies tin win unless they person a vision,” he observes.
“I can’t opportunity to my team: ‘The imagination is to make X cardinal pounds.’ We request to make money to support nan workplace doors open, but we besides request to retrieve why we are doing this.”
Ruhemann is not acrophobic of being called sentimental pursuing his film’s premiere.
“I americium judge I americium going to beryllium deed pinch that. There is nary question,” he says.
“If I talk astir life and death, and nan quality condition, these are large things that group tin rotation their eyes at. But that’s what we, arsenic artists, are trying to make consciousness of and to express. We are each trying to connect.”
He is excited astir nan ever-changing animation landscape, he observes, arsenic good arsenic caller devices he could usage while making nan film.
“I consciousness blessed to person lived successful what I telephone nan 2nd aureate property of animation. We each cognize astir nan aureate property of Disney, past we had Dark Ages and Roger Rabbit came on and blew everything wide open. But you can’t talk astir animation without acknowledging each nan technological leaps being made.”
“We tin make things a batch cheaper and we person seen immoderate examples of group really pushing nan boundaries now. I made this movie pinch Unreal Engine and for me, 1 of nan astir breathtaking places to reside successful is wherever poesy meets technology. It’s astonishing erstwhile they travel together.”
Still, astir of all, he wanted to return his time.
“The taxable of nan movie is paying attraction to each nan wonders that tin beryllium correct successful beforehand of our nose. Taking a region to spot them, to consciousness them. I cognize that my son, who is of nan TikTok generation, will go: ‘Dad, this is measurement excessively slow.’ But it really needed that pace,” he says.
“I situation you not to perceive vertebrate songs successful a different measurement from now on.”
