A Piglet's Tale

Making this short film was a mix of pure joy and sheer agony. Animation is probably one, if not the most, time consuming and daunting film-making technique a director can possibly deal with. It requires thorough planning, little room for mistakes and an extremely reliable and determined crew of artists.

Since the first draft of the script was completed, in 2017, my small crew and I, literally spent more than 3 years of our lives crafting the best possible film given the limited financial resources available. We set a goal from the outset: bring this heart-touching story to life in order to raise awareness towards animal welfare and of course express ourselves artistically. I truly believe that the biggest achievement a storyteller can dream of earning is to deliver a powerful message that resonates with people for years.

As if there weren’t enough hurdles to overcome, we also had to get used to get things rolling working remotely. I’m based in London, our lead animator, Leana Lapointe, in France, Veronica (storyboard, digital backgrounds) and Dat (watercolour backgrounds) respectively in Italy and Viet Nam. It was tough at the beginning but we did find a way to make it work and I can’t stress enough how much this whole process enriched all of us both at a professional and personal level.

Storyline-wise A Piglet’s Tale, whose original title was A pig to the moon, draws inspiration mainly from Japanese animation, literature and cinema. I grew up watching japanese animated series – anime – from the 80’s and 90’s, as well as pretty much all the feature films produced by the worldwide popular film company Studio Ghibli. Also novels like House of the sleeping beauties and other stories, by Yasunari Kawabata or Audition by Ryu Murakami paved the path to what was going to become my biggest passion/job in the years to come.
Last but not least, movies from directors such as Akira Kurosawa, Takeshi Kitano, Takashi Miike, Kim Kid Duk and Park Chan-wook deeply influenced my tastes and I believe that there’s always gonna be a tiny part of those artists into my projects.

All in all the experience of making this short film turned out to be a sort of as stepping stone for me as a film-maker. My every-day job is editing other people’s projects, a task that requires – I believe – exceptional communication skills. You must be able to understand what a certain director is looking for in terms of pacing, storytelling, hidden message and so on. Each film is like a baby who needs to be nourished with the proper “food”. Working closely with many talented artists, who are trying to leave a mark in the film making world made me aware of how much work, time and efforts are required to make your dream come true. It also led to a pleasant serendipity, when actress and producer Ailish Castillo – a colleague I worked with on her debut short film in 2019 – got on board as producer of my film, bringing to the table both organisational skills I was certainly lacking and a contagious, pure love for the arts.

I really hope that a Piglet’s Tale will lead the way to a long-lasting career in the animation field. That would be asking too much of this life probably, but dreamers gotta dream, that’s what makes us feel alive, happy and in harmony with the world.