Variety hosted a panel for six short films, moderated by Senior Artisans Editor Jazz Tangcay, as part of the Variety Streaming Room series. Among the films featured on the panel were “Au Revoir Mon Monde” from co-directors Florian Maurice and Astrid Novais, “Bottle George” from director Daisuke Tsutsumi, “Edge of Space” from director Jean de Meuron, “I’m Not a Robot” from director Victoria Warmerdam and producer Trent, “The Masterpiece” from director Alex Lora and “The Last Ranger” from director Cindy Lee and writer David S. Lee.
Maurice shared how the inspiration for “Au Revoir Mon Monde” came from her own lived experiences. Listening to a song about the difficulties of relationships, the co-director reflected on the loss of her father at age six and was drawn to crafting a narrative centered around human grief.
“I wanted to make a story about grieving,” Maurice said. “Taking the theme of the end of the world was the more obvious subject…I wanted to make a comedy, something fun and goofy.”
She added how one of the challenges pertaining to the production of “Au Revoir Mon Monde” was making a film that did not appear like a traditional apocalyptic film. This, the filmmaker explained, is where the colors and humorous elements of the project evolved.
“We wanted something strange and funny, original, but yet very believable,” Novais said. “So that’s why we chose quite of a simple story, but with a different kind of tone, like comedy and drama at the end. We wanted to find a balance.”
Cindy and David Lee cited severe weather conditions in the Eastern Cape and COVID scares as some of the challenges around shooting “The Last Ranger.”
Having a crew that was comfortable working in an environment with wildlife was essential, they explained, in order to capture pivotal moments for the film’s narrative core.
“As hard and emotional as the film is, we have to end on a positive note,” Cindy said. “We have to know that [Thandi the Rhino] survived and that she’s had five babies since then. So we literally had to get that final shot.”
David added how the production team had to transport shooting to the Kariega Game Reserve, where Thandi lives today, to close out the film.
“We had to chase the light again to get the final shot to get over to the other game reserve before the sun sets on our last and final day,” he said. “And then of course we had to track and find Thandi.”
Warmerdam said she had never shot a project on film before prior to “I’m Not a Robot” but pursuing this decision allowed for a very approach to the story itself. She said she drew inspiration from retro design as well as elements of science fiction.
“I think going back to that human craftsmanship of shooting on film, that really ties into that story,” Warmerdam said.
Trent credited his director for her meticulous preparation and stated that both creatives tend to do a significant amount of prep work before production commences.
“Besides the shooting of film, one of the challenges was also the final shot in the film,” Trent said. “Victoria wanted to do that in one shot. Of course we had to do it in a couple of shots. We had to do visual effects. We had to do a stunt woman jumping from the building.”
On the topic of final shots, de Meuron detailed the closing moments of “Edge of Space” in which the film’s protagonist returns to Earth after their galactic journey. A complex drone shot involving particle simulations was used, de Meuron explained, in addition to X-15 visual effects.
“We sort of track [the astronaut] and he walks to his wife and then of course they embrace and have a very tender moment,” de Meuron said. “Then I wanted to end with the moon because that’s eventually where we go, right? The movie starts with the sun and ends with the moon.”
For Tsutsumi, who has delved into the CG and 2D animation spaces in the past, “Bottle George” marked the director’s first entry into stop motion animation. This change in technique, he explained, required immense precision because the latter mode of filmmaking does not allow for adjustments such as changing frames or drawing in post-production.
He added that he and the production team shared a desire to use “Bottle George” as an artistic means of bringing awareness to a subject as misunderstood as addiction.
“We wanted to tell a story of a family struggling with addiction problems,” Tsutsumi said. “It’s a very, very sensitive subject and it was difficult to convey the exact struggles that I witnessed in my personal life through our cartoon characters.”
On “The Masterpiece,” Lora found his muse through the global immigration stories of Barcelona, various Mediterranean countries and the United States.
The director, who typically focuses on stories of disabled and minority communities, said the notion of people helping others as a means of helping themselves, became a thematic concept for the film when approached with the project.
“It’s a story about our own prejudices and I found that very interesting,” Lora said. “The seed was that, based on the stories and people that are scrap dealers in Barcelona and how that can lead to look[ing] ourselves in the mirror in a way.”
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