Michel Ocelot: “Grandfather’s nose is missing”
“There are two parts in my life: before and after KIRIKOU. At first, I was a poor artist with no money to make films. Afterwards things changed completely…” In October 2023, Michel Ocelot was invited by the Schlingel Festival in Chemnitz, Germany, on the occasion of his life-time achievement award (Ehreschlingel). Ocelot is not only a storyteller in his animated films. On stage, too, the French animation artist entertains his audience with stories about his life and career, about successes and failures, and about the use of different animation techniques. The story of a peaceful vigilante…
As a young artist I was often criticised for not following ‘the gospel’, for not making films like Walt Disney did. Assuming that professional filmmakers didn’t work with cut-out animation, I decided to do a film entirely made in this technique. I made THE THREE INVENTORS with nothing but white paper, the napkins that I used as a kid to decorate the house. I still think it is a great story in an exquisite style. For the first time I did exactly what I wanted. Everything was me, even the voice. I didn’t know how to animate so I tried over and over again, with very little equipment, until it was acceptable.
Calling Silicon Valley
My work was often compared with Lotte Reiniger, who made the first European full length animation THE ADVENTURES OF PRINCE ACHMED in 1926. She used puppet theatre in frame by frame animation, with delicate design and interesting backgrounds. There is a beautiful innocence to her work, but I wanted to tell stronger stories.
I was often jobless, so I used my time doing workshops with children. One day I decided to make Lotte Reiniger films with them. They all tried different techniques and the results looked childish and unclear… except for the one made with black silhouettes! This kid taught me about the cheapest technique! All you need to make a film is black paper, iron wire and scissors. It is so simple – when facing a problem, you don’t have to call Silicon Valley, you just solve it on the spot.
The boy who changed my life
Still times were bad. My short films were screened in a few festivals and I contacted every broadcaster in Europe about the fairytales I wanted to tell, but they never answered. Until one producer told me: stop wasting your time on TV – write a script for a feature film! So I wrote it in one week, about a boy who was going to change my life by saying his famous words: “Mother, give birth to me.”
At that time animated features were hardly made in France. It was generally accepted that making a successful feature in Europe was impossible. KIRIKOU AND THE WITCH would be a failure, playing in the theatres for one week and then be forgotten forever. But we found a young distributor who believed in the film and who believed in heroic small cinema owners with a passion for film. We explained to them: we don’t have money for a publicity campaign, we don’t have a trailer, but we believe in a word-of-mouth campaign. Keep this film on your programme, even if it starts badly, because time is needed to let the word go round. The second week more people will come, the third week the theatres will be full, and the fourth week people will be queueing outside. And that is how it went.
There were many disputes about KIRIKOU AND THE WITCH, but the biggest problem was that producers were afraid of nudity. They told me: nobody will accept this, there will be uproar. But I spent my childhood in the heart of Africa and I had these memories of good people, beautiful people who were not ashamed about having a body. This is what I wanted to convey.
Take it or leave it
After KIRIKOU’s massive success, everybody loved me, including bankers. For the first and last time in my life, I could make a film with a big budget, and one of the luxuries I allowed myself was to make it with all artists in one workspace. We created AZUR & ASMAR in Paris with the entire team around me, and it was great! The film told about two kids being raised together, and then meeting again in their twenties. I could try all possible techniques, even CGI, and I enjoyed it.
This time the conflicts were about the language. As this was a story about the friendship between Christians and Muslims, the film was in French and Arabic. The rule of the game was: one language you can understand, and one you can’t. Only the French parts could be dubbed or subtitled. That was in the core of the story: the feeling of being an immigrant. In life you don’t have subtitles! A German company wanted to give the film a big release, but only if they could have all the characters speaking German. My producer asked me to decide: yes or no? I said no. Only thanks to KIRIKOU and the fame it brought me, I was in a position to say ‘take it or leave it’.
Bjork at the door
Then I found a message in my mailbox asking if I wanted to meet the Icelandic singer Bjork. I thought it was a hoax. One day I opened my door and there she was, asking me to make a music video for the song EARTH INTRUDERS. I did the opposite of what a music video should be: I made it in one shot! That was a great experiment, and working with her was very pleasant, even if I had to deliver twice as fast as I reasonably could.
A story that feels real and sincere
Once a project is finished, I regret it, because I still see so many things that could have been done better. This is something you learn to accept. When you have a good story that feels real and sincere, people want to believe it and they will not mind the details. KIRIKOU was my first feature and it wasn’t done very well. Today I wouldn’t accept this quality standard. But if the story is good, who cares if in one picture the grandfather’s nose is missing?
I’m currently finishing a script that is different from all I did so far. There is no fairytale, no costumes, it takes place in an uninteresting city and it is about drug addicts. There are a few things that I want young people to know about drugs…
The films that I make are “me” – completely. I don’t find it hard to give six years of my life to a film. I write the script in one week, I get obsessed by it, I read only about the subject, I work all the time and I don’t take holidays. If I want something so badly, then I’m willing to pay that price, because that price for me is not so high. It feels great to do this job. So once a story is finished… I start the next one.
Based on Michael Ocelot’s masterclass presentation at the Schlingel Festival (Chemnitz, Germany)