Michel Ocelot is a director and screenwriter known to the general public for his trilogy of animated films Kirikou (1998-2012). He also signed the triptych princes and princesses (2000), tales of the night (2011) and Ivan Tsarevich and The Changing Princess (2016), made of cut paper. Impossible not to mention also Azure and Asmar (2006) and Dili to Pariswhich earned him the César 2019 for best animated film.
Since April 20 and until May 8, the public can share a retrospective entirely devoted to him: The animated worlds of Michel Ocelot, at the Michel Laclotte auditorium at the Louvre. We can also note in the diary the release date of his next animated film The pharaoh, the savage and the princesson October 19.
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franceinfo: Are you touched by this retrospective? The fact of saying that for fifteen days, the public will live with you, live with your creations.
Michael Ocelot: It’s a bit crazy for me to appear at the Louvre. I’m happy and I like that my films are shown!
What made you attracted to animated films?
In fact, when people ask me when I started working for animation, I answer: a year and a half, when I took a pencil and started to scribble.
As a child, I drew, cut and tinkered a lot. I made a lot of puppets, small gifts and that’s my job today.
Michael Ocelotat franceinfo
I am, a priori, at the beginning a designer, but I became a storyteller and I now feel more a storyteller than a designer, even if there is no question that I stop drawing.
You, from the start, what interests you is to create with the simplest appearance.
So part of the simplicity is that I don’t have any money and despite that, I still want to make films. But I like simplicity, purity. I also like to be understood right away. My main material: not to lie.
It’s true that you grew up in Conakry, Guinea. Then you went through Angers, then Paris. Is your desire to tell stories the basis?
I think I had a privileged childhood. I went to school in Conakry, but the summer holidays were in the Nice region. As a child, I knew two totally different worlds, which didn’t know each other and I was comfortable in both and it’s a very good start. I was not uprooted and I could live elsewhere.
We rarely read about your parents. What did they bring you?
Verry much. Probity is my father. A very narrow morality. Never fail. And I like it. And fantasy is my mother.
You are going to make your first short films with cut-out paper. It’s really something that sticks to your skin and there is a very artisanal side to your productions.
I’m telling you stories, they’re not true, they’re bits of paper, I’m not hiding it from you, but the feelings are very real and you’re going to be taken, little by little.
Michael Ocelotat franceinfo
Yes, artisanal, circus, DIY, bits of string and get there anyway. I also like when you see how it’s done.
We tell you: director and screenwriter. How do you define yourself?
Author of animated films, that seems correct to me. All the films I made, I decided them. There wasn’t a person I wanted to emulate. In fact, from the beginning, I wanted to be me.
In 1979, you signed your first short film, The three inventors. Then, you will receive a César for the best animated short film for: The legend of the poor hunchbackin 1983. How did you experience these awards, these distinctions?
Before Kirikou, I am rather long-term unemployed who, from time to time, makes a small film. For the short film, he is told to go on stage to give him a prize, he is happy. And then afterwards, it falls back into nothingness. And after Kirikou, my life has changed and it’s not a hard life anymore. My little creation has become a piece of furniture in France. I said to myself: but I got there!
Does that mean that at times you doubted?
No. I must be obsessed and I couldn’t think of anything else because it suited me so well to be able to draw and tell what I want. It is magic.
Is transmission part of you?
She is very much a part of me. I never make films for children, but I think of children. I like being bombarded with information that they don’t understand right away, but that will do them good, make them grow, that they will understand after a while.
Finally, how do you view your career path?
I’m not doing badly. Let’s say that I had a first part where I had a lot of trouble, but I never gave up. A second part where I no longer had a lot of trouble and I have a privileged life. What I want, I do it and, from time to time, I am paid. This means that I eat my fill every day and the rest of the time, I have fun.