17 Comments

Bravo! Funny Birds sounds eerily close to Minimalism in Literature, as it also concentrates on the mundane and all but forces the reader/viewer to feel what the character/s do. Which is why I’m so pumped to check it out… Thanks for this!

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Thank you! Hope you like the film. We've seen a lot of positive reactions to it so far, which has been really awesome.

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Loved your take on it!

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We just watched Funny Birds. Thank you for the recommendation. It's beautiful.

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This is wonderful to hear -- thank you for letting us know. It makes us happy that so many people are enjoying the film.

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Funny Birds is an absolute delight! Thank you so much for bringing it to my attention. A thoughtful, unique, French animation about a bookish young bird lover is such a special treat!

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Ah, awesome to hear that it resonated so much! Super glad you enjoyed.

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Brilliant and Beautiful - loved it all - well done!

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Very happy you enjoyed the film! It's definitely become a favorite of ours.

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What a treat!

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Glad you liked it! It's so underrated.

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Thanks for highlighting this film. I hadn't heard about it until you guys put the spotlight on it.

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Happy to bring a little more attention to it! Even in France, it hasn't gotten a huge amount of coverage -- this nomination took us by surprise. Hopefully many, many more people will get the chance to discover it.

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Been meaning to watch this one since you first highlighted it, thanks for the link and the background on how it came to be. Another director who utilises unfiltered recordings (of conversations) to build upon a sort of pseudo-documentary feel is Laura Gonçalves: https://vimeo.com/54952654

There's also Foolish Girl by Zoya Kireyeva, which features what seems to be live audio to capture children in a more naturalistic light: https://youtu.be/Dq6TUYR4afw?feature=shared

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Happy to share the film and its story (and happy to hear that you remembered that write-up after all this time)! Thanks very much for the links -- these are two we haven't come across before. That first one especially has almost a Hubleys vibe in the way the sound is used, which is cool to see.

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The first episode of Under The Onion Skin goes a bit into detail about Gonçalves' process in her latest film 'Garbage Man', if you're interested. Quote: "I wanted [...] to use real voice, real sounds, and work with the expression of animation; adding to reality that part of you as a filmmaker, as an artist. It's your interpretation of what is happening". I didn't make the Hubley connection; Creature Comforts could be added to the pile as well, even though it's a more direct approach.

Also, I like how this week's members article was focused around Takahata, which creates a sort of thematic cohesion in the newsletter. Would like to see more of this back-to-back old & modern correlation of approaches to animation.

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Thank you! And it was partly a coincidence, but we found it interesting to do the Funny Birds article as a sort of counterpart to the one about Chie. The feedback is appreciated -- we'll have to keep this format in mind.

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