In advance of BFF’s 2020 Online Festival, we will be sharing exclusive interviews with this year’s filmmakers. Get to know their films, their inspirations, and their advice to fellow emerging filmmakers. Check out our interview with Alexa Tremblay-Francoeur, director of AFFANNATO.
Alexa Tremblay-Francoeur is native from the city of Québec, now residing in Saguenay. It is only near the end of her studies that she starts experimenting with hand-drawn animation, at first with Crayon Rose, Cheveux vert then with Déconstruction and finally with The Passage an official part of the selection of the festival Regard sur le Court-Métrage in 2016. In the same year she completed her baccalaureate in art at the Université du Québec à Chicoutimi.
Congratulations on your 2020 BFF film selection! Can you tell us a bit about your film?
First of all, I must explain the title of the film because I get that question a lot. The word Affannato is part of the Italian musical vocabulary, and it means a tone that brings unease or fright to its listeners.
I think it is the best word to describe my short film.
What inspired you to tell this story?
This film was inspired by my childhood experiences when I was learning the violin. I was fascinated by the sound of children having just started to learn this instrument but still playing together. It had its own cacophonous sound, and it was so out of tune.
Still from Affannato
Your film speaks to the very real experience of pressure on artists to perfect their craft.Can you tell us why you decided to portray this experience through a musician attending a music school?
I think in all creative spheres, there is a pressure to perform. It's sometimes an external pressure, but sometimes it's also a pressure that we put on ourselves. I wanted to explore that feeling that all artists feel at least one time in their lives.
Still from Affannato
What’s the core message that you wanted to convey to your audience through this film?
The core message of the film is the experience of pressure on artists, but also, I wanted the audience to feel scared or uneasy watching my movie. It may be weird to say, but I wanted my short film to be a not-so-pleasant experience to watch.
What’s next for you?
I'm presently working on another short film project, that will discuss the destruction of ancestral houses, that I consider a real problem in my province.
What advice would you give to an emerging filmmaker just starting out?
It's hard sometimes to start a first movie, mostly because of all the excellent short films that already exist.
We, as filmmakers and artists, tend to compare our work to others' all the time. The real advice I must give is, just do it. It's normal to fail, especially for a first movie.
Care to share any films you’re inspired by, that our community should check out during this quarantine?
A great source of inspiration that I have comes mostly for the animated movies made by Studio Ghibli (Hayao Miyazaki).
I also love the work of Laika Studio and Cartoon Saloon. If you like animation, you must check out their work.
Catch AFFANNATO as part of BFF’s 2020 Online Festival, screening in Shorts Program: What We Make For Us. Join us June 25 - 28, 2020 for screenings, virtual Q&As, panel discussions and more! Get Tickets Today.