2019-11-13 The Hollywood Reporter

THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER 77 NOVEMBER 13, 2019

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with The Angry Birds Movie 2 ($145 mi l l ion).

In new properties, DWA has submitted

Abominable, an adventure that follows a young

girl who befriends a yeti; Laika has stop-

motion yeti tale Missing Link; Blue Sky Studios

(which was acquired by Disney as part of the

Fox deal) made Spies in Disguise; and United

Artists Releasing submitted The Addams

Family, which includes a starry voice cast led

by Charlize Theron.

And to make a crowded race a little more so,

Netflix submitted its first original animated

feature, Klaus, a Santa Claus origin story

from Despicable Me creator Sergio Pablos.

The streaming giant, which is known for

its significant awards spends, also has the

Jérémy Clapin-helmed I Lost My Body, which

it acquired after the French film won the

Nespresso Grand Prize (the first animated

film to do so) at Cannes.

For the past few years, a nomination slot

or two has gone to an independent animated

film, many of them from indie distributor

GKIDS, which since 2010 has scored 11 nomi-

nations in the animated feature category. It

submitted 10 films this year, but Weather ing

With You, centering on a boy who meets an

orphan girl who can manipulate the weather,

is a strong contender. Also Japan’s submis-

sion in the international feature film category

hails from Makoto Shinkai, helmer of the 2016

body-swapping hit Yo u r Name, the fourth-

highest-grossing film ever in Japan.

Several other animated indies already have

amassed early awards that might give them a

boost, including GKIDS’ Funan, a hand-drawn

film that won top prizes in 2018 at the Annecy

International Animated Film Festival and the

Animation Is Film Festival. GKIDS’ Buñuel in

the Labyrinth of the Turtles, which tells a story

about surrealist filmmaker Luis Buñuel, took

the special jury prize at the 2018 Animation Is

Film Festival, and Another Day of Life, which

centers on the outbreak of civil war follow-

ing Angola’s independence from Portugal in

1975, earned the best animated feature prize

at the 2018 Goya Awards, Spain’s version of

the Oscars.

A pair of inclusive stories

aim to give viewers ‘courage

to embrace their full being’

TWO LITTLE FILMS

WITH BIG REACH

M

atthew A. Cherry, the director of

independently made animated

short Hair Love, can think of only a

handful of animated features that

have black characters in main roles. “When

you don’t see yourself represented and

you don’t see people with your same type

of hair seen as the hero and seen as loving

and desired, it really does a number on your

self-confidence,” says Cherry, whose short

follows an African American father trying to

figure out how to do his daughter’s hair.

Cherry isn’t the only filmmaker who

created a film for those who’ve been mar-

ginalized. Purl, from writer-director Kristen

Lester, follows a pink ball of yarn that tries

to find acceptance in a male-dominated

work environment. “I wrote the story based

off of my experience of being a woman in

animation,” says Lester, whose film was

made through Pixar’s SparkShorts program

(an initiative giving employees six months

and budgets to produce short animated

films). She says that, like her protagonist,

she wanted to fit in and find professional

acceptance. “Because I often felt like I was

the only woman in the room, I put aside the

things that I felt made me different,” she

says. “I wanted people who had been in

3

2

1 The Secret Life of Pets 2 features voice stars Patton Oswalt,

Kevin Hart, Eric Stonestreet and Jenny Slate.

2 Missing Link features an English explorer who meets a

Sasquatch-like creature.

3 DreamWorks Animation’s Abominable debuted at the

Toronto Film Festival in September.

ANIMATED SHORT

that experience themselves to feel like they

weren’t alone. I also wanted to give people

the courage to embrace their full being and

what makes them unique individuals.”

Cherry’s inspiration came from social

media. “I kept coming across these videos of

dads doing their daughters’ hair, or playing

with their daughters,” and many of the videos

had thousands of retweets. “Upon further

research, I found that a lot of people didn’t

really see black dads in that same light, as

domestic and doing all these simple tasks we

all take for granted,” he says. “So, to me it was

a big opportunity to try to educate.” — C.G.

1

2

1 The five-minute short Hair Love played in

theaters in front of The Angry Birds Movie 2.

2 Purl debuted online in February.