The animation studio “Les Fées Spéciales” in Montpellier in honor of the Goyas, the Spanish Césars

Nominated for the Goya, the docufiction “They shot the piano player” by Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal was largely produced by an animation studio in Montpellier.

This is one of the cinematographic events of the beginning of the year, the release of the Spanish documentary They shot the piano player by Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal. A hybrid film between documentary, animation and police investigation into the brutal and mysterious disappearance of Tenorio junior, a virtuoso pianist from the beginnings of bossa nova. And it was in a studio in Montpellier, Les Fées Spéciales, that a large part of the film was produced, an animation studio with a string of successes.

At the heart of this docufiction, a journalist passionate about jazz tries to discover what happened to a Brazilian pianist who suddenly disappeared in the 1970s, in the golden age of Bossa nova.

To solve this mystery, the directors chose animation. And these are the studio teams Special fairies who looked at the cradle of “Piano player” to achieve the “composition”that is to sayassembly of all the layers of work created by the other partner studios of the project, such as the characters and the settings, to which they brought an atmosphere, in particular through the lighting: “We are going to take the work of the different teams and add the shining windows, the shooting stars. This is what gives life to the decor, and makes it less fixed,” explain Flavio Perez the Technical Director at “The Special Fairies”.

A few months after completing the film, director Fernando Trueba agreed to reconnect with the France 3 Montpellier team. Major character in Spanish cinema, the Madrilenian who has already received an Oscar for his film La Belle Epoque and several Goyas made with The piano player, his second animated film after the highly acclaimed Chico and Rita in 2010 : “After discovering the possibilities that animation offers, I said to myself one day: what if we did that in animation? And then I thought: that’s nonsense, in a week you won’t remember it more. In the end, quite the opposite happened”, smiles the Madrid director.

“Putting our know-how at the service of great stories”

After the fight against Francoism with Joseph or a fable for diversity and feminism with Dilili in Paris, the new adventure of the Special Fairies studio takes us to the heart of the abuses of South American military juntas. It’s almost a habit: “These are committed films that must be supported, artistically, politically. We are here to put our know-how at the service of beautiful stories that benefit us as citizens. The words of this missing pianist, yet still present “His work caught our attention. It’s this type of project that we like to support.” explains Eric Serre, Artistic Director of the Montpellier animation studio.

The proof, the next feature film in which the studio is participating is the event film by Michel Hazanavicius, The most valuable commodity. A cartoon notably by “The Special Fairies” about the fate of a child saved from the Nazi death camps. The release is scheduled for 2024.