# Michel Ocelot

Michel Ocelot (French pronunciation:; born 27 October 1943) is a French writer, designer, storyboard artist and director of animated films and television programs (formerly also animator, background artist, narrator and other roles in earlier works) and a former president of the International Animated Film Association. Though best known for his 1998 debut feature Kirikou and the Sorceress, his earlier films and television work had already won Césars and British Academy Film Awards among others and he was made a chevalier of the Légion d'honneur on 23 October 2009, presented to him by Agnès Varda who had been promoted to commandeur earlier the same year. In 2015 he got the Lifetime Achievement Award at the World Festival of Animated Film - Animafest Zagreb.

## Biography

He was born in 1943 to a Catholic family then in Villefranche-sur-Mer, on the French Riviera, who relocated to Guinea, West Africa for much of his childhood, moving back to Anjou in France during his adolescence. As a teenager he played with and created toy theatre productions and was inspired to become an animator through viewing Hermína Týrlová's Vzpoura hraček (The Revolt of Toys, 1946) and discovering a book on DIY stop motion animation. He was never formally taught animation, however, and instead studied the decorative arts, first at the Ecole régionale des Beaux-Arts in Angers, then the École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs in Paris and the California Institute of the Arts in Los Angeles. He now lives and operates from an atelier-apartment in Paris.
His œuvre is characterised by having worked in a variety of animation techniques, typically employing a different medium for each new project, but almost exclusively within the genres of fairy tales and fairytale fantasy. Some, such as Kirikou and the Sorceress, are loose adaptations of existing folk tales, others are original stories constructed from the "building blocks" of such tales. He describes the process as "I play with balls that innumerable jugglers have already used for countless centuries. These balls, passed down from hand to hand, are not new. But today I'm the one doing the juggling." Visually, they are characterised by a rigid use, excepting brief transitions between them, of the side-on, straight-on and ¾ viewpoints TF1 INFO - Actualités du jour en direct : Actualité en France et à l'International of silhouette and cutout animation (such as that of Lotte Reiniger and Karel Zeman) even when working in mediums which allow for greater flexibility and dynamic viewpoints. Though often likened to Reiniger, he himself finds her films "rather archaic and not very attractive" and does not list them among his favourites. He also admires the art of ancient Egypt, pottery of ancient Greece, Hokusai and illustrators such as Arthur Rackham, W. Heath Robinson and his brothers and, most of all, Aubrey Beardsley. He was president of the Association international du film d'animation (ASIFA) from 1994 to 2000.
While already a household name in much of continental Europe, and greatly respected by Studio Ghibli's Isao Takahata (who directed Japanese dubs of his films), his success in the more conservative markets of the United Kingdom, United States and Germany has been restricted by a mixed reaction to the realistic and non-sexual, but nevertheless omnipresent nudity in his breakout film Kirikou and the Sorceress. Although all of these countries' boards of film classification have approved it as being suitable for all ages, cinemas and TV channels have been reluctant to show it due to the possible backlash from offended parents. In 2007, he gained some further recognition within the English-speaking world by directing a music video for the Icelandic musician Björk, the lead single from her album Volta.
In another 2008 interview he mentioned as further examples of favourite and influential artistic works Voltaire's letters, The Heron and the Crane, Crac, Father and Daughter, the first part of Grand Illusion, Neighbors, the Eiffel Tower, Millesgården, Persian miniatures, Jean Giraud's free drawing and illustrations by Kay Nielsen.

## Filmography

| Year | Title (English) | Format | Medium | Other notes |
| 1974 | Le Tabac (lit. "The Newsagent") | 1 min short film | | |
| 1976 | Gideon (Gédéon) | 60 × 5 min TV series | Cut-out animation | Based on the comics by Benjamin Rabier |
| 1979 | Les 3 Inventeurs (lit. "The Three Inventors") | 13 min short film | Cut-out animation | Best animated short at the 34th British Academy Film Awards, 1980Zagreb World Festival of Animated Films and 1981 Odense Film Festival (tied with Crac !) Extract featured in the "Globe Trotting" segment of the 2003 documentary The Animated Century |
| 1981 | Daughters of Equality (Les Filles de l’égalité) | 1 min short film | Traditional animation | Special jury prize at the 1982 Albi Film Festival |
| 1982 | Beyond Oil | 20 min educational film | Cut-out animation | Animated segments only; live action directed by Philippe Vallois Full transfer available on YouTube from production company aaa |
| 1982 | The Legend of the Poor Hunchback (La Légende du pauvre bossu) | 7 min short film | Animatic | Best animated short at the 8th César Awards |
| 1983 | La Princesse insensible (lit. "The Impassive Princess") | 13 × 4 min TV series | Mixed | |
| 1987 | Les Quatre Vœux du Vilain et de sa femme (lit. "The Four Wishes of Vilain and of His Wife") | 5 min short film | Traditional animation | Featured in the 1989 package film Outrageous Animation compiled and distributed in cinemas and on home video in North America by Expanded Cinema |
| 1989 | Ciné si | 8 × 12 min TV series | Mixed silhouette animation | Best TV series episode at the 1990 Ottawa International Animation Festival and 1991 Annecy Festival 1991 Compiled into Princes and Princesses |
| 1992 | Les Contes de la nuit (lit. "Tales of the Night") | 26 min TV special | Mixed silhouette animation | Contains "La Belle Fille et le sorcier" (lit. "The Beautiful Girl and the Sorcerer"), "Bergère qui danse" (lit. "The Dancing Shepherdess") and "Le Prince des joyaux" (lit. "The Prince of Gems") |
| 1998 | Kirikou and the Sorceress (Kirikou et la Sorcière) | 71 min feature film | Digital traditional animation | Best animated feature at the 1999 Annecy Festival; best European feature at the 2002 British Animation Awards (tied with Chicken Run) |
| 2000 | Princes and Princesses (Princes et Princesses) | 70 min feature film | Mixed silhouette animation | Compilation movie of Ciné si |
| 2005 | Kirikou and the Wild Beasts (Kirikou et les Bêtes sauvages, aka Kirikou and the Wild Beast) | 75 min feature film | Digital traditional animation | Co-directed with Bénédicte Galup |
| 2006 | Azur & Asmar (Azur et Asmar, aka Azur & Asmar: The Princes' Quest) | 90 min feature film | Computer animation | Best animated feature at the 2007 Zagreb World Festival of Animated Films Also serves as voice director for the English version |
| 2007 | "Earth Intruders" | 4 min music video for Björk | Mixed live action and animation | Nominated for best video at the 2007 Q Awards |
| 2007 | Kirikou et Karaba (lit. "Kirikou and Karaba") | Play | Musical theatre | |
| 2008 | L'Invité aux noces (lit. "The Wedding Guest") | Original video short | Animatic | |
| 2010 | Dragons et Princesses (lit. "Dragons and Princesses") | 10 × 13 min TV series for Canal+ | Computer silhouette animation | Special award for a TV series at the 2010 Annecy Festival Compiled into Tales of the Night (2011) and Ivan Tsarevitch and the Changing Princess |
| 2011 | Tales of the Night (Les Contes de la nuit) | 84 min feature film | Computer silhouette animation | Compilation movie of Dragons et Princesses Premiered in competition for the Golden Bear at the 61st Berlin International Film Festival; played in competition at the 2011 Sitges Film Festival |
| 2012 | Kirikou and the Men and Women (Kirikou et les Hommes et les Femmes) | 88 min feature film | Computer animation | |
| 2016 | Ivan Tsarevitch and the Changing Princess (Ivan Tsarévitch et la Princesse Changeante, aka Ivan Tsarevitch and the Changing Princess: Four Enchanting Tales) | 53 min feature film | Computer silhouette animation | Compilation movie of Dragons et Princesses |
| 2018 | Dilili in Paris (Dilili à Paris) | Feature film | Computer animation | |
| 2022 | Le Pharaon, le Sauvage et la Princesse | Feature film | Computer animation | |