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Portrait of an Artist in Exile French cartoonist and director Aurel discusses his acclaimed animated movie Josep and his fascination with the life of Spanish artist Bartoli.
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rival of the screenwriter Jean-Louis Milesi) were really more rench cartoonist Aurel’s animated feature Josep is a biographical. I was totally obsessed by his fascinating life. powerful account of a pivotal chapter in the life of Thanks to Jean-Louis, we brought the script to something Spanish artist Josep Bartoli (1910-1995), who fought Franco’s regime, was interned in a French concentration more fictional and also stronger. Our biggest challenge was financing the movie. It took us two years even before the camp and eventually made it to Mexico, where he became production began, and then about 14 months to make it.” Frida Kahlo’s lover. The highly artistic movie was one of the According to the director, most of the film, which was proCannes Festival’s official selections last year and went on to win the European Film Award for Best Animated Feature duced under the Les Films d’Ici Méditerranée banner, was produced in France: The backgrounds were produced by Film (beating out heavyweights such as Klaus, The Nose and Calamity). The director was kind enough to answer a few of Lille-based Tchack, and animation and editing was handled by Angoulême’s Les Films du Poisson Rouge. Montepellier’s our questions via email. “About 10 years ago, I came across the book La Retirada, which is written by George ‘I hope Josep is a kind of manifesto and tribute to the Bartoli, Josep’s nephew,” recalls Aurel. “This art of drawing. I want the movie to show how book is about the Spanish exiles in France drawings can be powerful and evocative — even at the end of the Spanish war in 1939. It’s illustrated by several of Josep’s drawings without any or a lot of movement.’ — including the cover, which is the first — Director Aurel drawing I’d ever seen from him. Ever since I discovered his work, I knew that I wanted to work on his art and life story. I was actually making my first animated short project Octobre Noir (Black October) at the time and knew that I wanted to continue to explore animation through Josep Bartoli’s work and life.” Aurel says he was passionate about Spain and the history of the Spanish Civil War, especially after seeing Ken Loach’s movie Land and Freedom, which came out when he was a teenager. “So, I think I saw the opportunity to join my two passions with this story,” he says. “However, the first few versions of the script (before the ar-
Les Fées Spéciales handled the compositing, while sound was done by Piste Rouge in Paris. Part of the animation was also produced by Belgium’s Lunanime and voices were recorded in Barcelona. (Noted Spanish actor Sergi López of Pan’s Labyrinth fame voices the film’s lead character.) In total, around 70 people worked on the project.
Through the Mists of Memory Since the film is told through flashbacks, it needed two distinct visual styles: one devoted to the contemporary era, and the other representing 1939-era France. The director selected 2D animation created with TVPaint (produced by Lunanime) for the modern sequences of the movie, and for the historic sections he went with Poisson Rouge’s Hoodoo-produced animation. “I think it’s an amazing animation software, although I’m not an expert in animation,” he says. “It’s a vector-based drawing software which you can use with your own drawing tools (i.e. my own pencils and ink brushes, etc., from my pencil case). Every line an animator drew in the software is mine thanks to a library filled with lines I had drawn before and scanned. Plus, Hoodoo helps animation by offering intervals to the animator … directly picked-up from my lines library. Obviously, the animators can modify every image. It brings a real handmade quality to the animation.” Aurel says the reason he decided to opt for a different kind of animation for the period sections of the film was two-fold. “The story is told by an older man to his
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february 21
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