(Status: In Development)
The Little Run
Directors: Julien Bisaro
Scriptwriter: Julien Bisaro and Claire Paoletti
Graphic Author: Julien Bisaro
Producer: Claire Paoletti (Picolo Pictures, France)
Target audience: Children and Families
Technique: 2D digital and 3D digital
Format: 75’
Synopsis
It’s not easy, becoming a dad! Especially when you’re a young male blue penguin like Cookie, and you can’t lay an egg. But a volcanic eruption turns his refuge upside down and sets a curious soft echidnas egg in his path. What if this was the little one he’d been waiting for?
The impressive, soft yet dazzling visual narrative that we experienced with Shooom’s Odyssey (2019) has powered up and returning to us as a feature film project. The Little Run, a new adventure centering around a young male blue penguin and a baby echidna, is an exciting new feature film project that was pitched at Cartoon Movie 2024.
We interviewed Claire Paoletti, the co-author and producer of the film project, on the story behind The Little Run.
Interview with Claire Paoletti
Hideki Nagaishi (HN): What do you think are the key points of this animated feature film that would attract the potential audience?
Claire Paoletti: The little blue penguin, an emotional story, and tender comedy!
HN: How did this film project start?
Claire Paoletti: With The Little Run, Julien Bisaro and I wanted to extend the narrative reflection began with Shooom’s Odyssey around an original inter-species animal family. This is the story of a bond and a family that freely reconstitutes itself, told from the animal’s point of view. Moreover, we also question our rapport to the living beings – a topical subject which is very important to us. That is to say the coexistence and communication between animals and humans, domestication, wilding, abuse, survival. That’s how we came to the story of the encounter between Cookie, a young blue male penguin in need of an egg, and Spiny, an orphaned echidna baby (a rare species of oviparous mammal). On the run through the beautiful landscapes they cross inspired by New Zealand, they get to adopt each other.
HN: Do you have any messages or experiences you want to deliver to the target audience through the film?
Claire Paoletti: Through this story, we aim to raise questions in the audience, so that by the end of the film viewers of all ages will be wondering about the importance of bonds in the life of a living being, and what a family really is. After all, there’s the biological family, but also the chosen one. Another question that interests us concerns the place that human and non-human animals occupy in the world they inhabit. If, through this cinematic experience, we succeed in raising young audiences’ awareness of these issues, we’ll have won the day!
HN: At your current point in the project, what do you take care in the most during scriptwriting and what kind of difficulties are there?
Claire Paoletti: We aim for viewers to be able to connect with the characters, especially Cookie, the little blue penguin, and feel the emotions he experiences. The main difficulty we faced was bringing to life animal characters who don’t speak, but express themselves through sounds (grunts, squeaks, etc.). This is often akin to silent cinema as the characters express their emotions through pantomime.
HN: In Shooom’s Odyssey, you showed us the epic adventure of a small owl, filled with various plot points, condensed into less than 30 minutes. I’m curious about the reason why for “The Little Run” you’ve selected a longer feature film format (75 minutes) to tell the story of another small creature’s adventure. What is your main goal and benefit of using 75 minutes to depict the story? Are there any differences in your methods of developing the film’s story to make the best use of the feature film format?
Claire Paoletti: After Shooom’s Odyssey, it was natural for us to move forward to a longer format with more time to tell the story and develop the characters’ issues. This came about quite naturally, and the story grew richer as the writing progressed.
