BAD – Bergamo Animation Days it is a festival with over 40 free events including meetings, workshops, screenings and activities dedicated to the world of contemporary animation, with a space dedicated to training and professional orientation through BAD Academy, but also moments of in-depth analysis and events open to the public and families. Among the main guests of this edition there is also Bruno Bozzetto, what yesSaturday morning 16 May he will talk with Lillo Petrolo in the talk “Make me laugh. Humor in cinema between animation and live action”, moderated by Valentina Mazzola. A dialogue that explores the mechanisms of comedy between different languages, comparing gag construction, comic timing, drawing and actor’s performance. In a dynamic format featuring interviews, anecdotes and ironic incursions, the meeting will offer the public an unprecedented look at what is really hidden behind laughter. The animation master also just received theThe David di Donatello Lifetime Achievement Award. Two splendid opportunities to talk to Bruno Bozzetto again, exactly ten years after our last interview, which we did with him in Studio Bozzetto in Milan on the occasion of the documentary on his life, Sketch, not too much.
Let’s start from Bad Academy, in “his” Bergamo and of which he is very fond
«BAD Academy is a very interesting event because it takes place in a university setting and attracts many young people. It’s a very nice thing because for three days it brings together professionals who talk about everything that working in an animated film entails: from the creation of the drawing to the storyboard, from the story to the screenplay, up to the creation of the characters. One thinks that animation is drawing, but that’s not true. If you think about 3D animation, you might not even know how to draw and animate a dinosaur anyway: it’s a matter of movement, acting, timing. There are many other activities: music, sound effects, writing, creating sets, they are all different things. Then it’s close to my house and I always like to go.”
Do they often invite you to festivals and events?
«Even too much. Now I can’t go everywhere, and if they’re too far away, I say I can’t. I prefer to travel by car and drive myself, but if the journey exceeds three or four hours I get too tired.”
However, he seems to be in excellent shape for his age. Driving four hours is not for everyone.
«Actually, I’m starting to feel the years. I have always done a lot of sport: tennis, windsurfing, paragliding. Now I just go for long walks.”
Did you expect to receive the David di Donatello for lifetime achievement?
«Not at all. Just think, I was taking a walk in Campiglio on a path named after a certain Detassis when I received a phone call from Piera Detassis, President and Artistic Director of the David di Donatello Award. A very funny coincidence, which I almost didn’t want to believe.”
And how was the ceremony?
«I went with my nephew, who is twenty years old and studies cinema at the Academy of Fine Arts. For him it was an incredible opportunity to be among all those actors, directors and screenwriters. We stayed in Rome for three days. I was pleased that such an important award wanted to recognize someone who has been an animator in cinema. Animation has always been considered a world unto itself, often something for children. Instead, for me it’s just one of the ways of making cinema, but things are changing a bit. Do you think that when in 1991 I received an Oscar nomination for best animated film, the press relegated the news to three lines. Now it seems that everyone has noticed me, a little late though, because if it had happened when I was younger I would have had an easier time finding someone willing to invest in an animated film.”
After a career that began way back in 1958 and a David, it’s time to take stock. What made you most proud?
“Surely Not too cheerfulbecause I love classical music and because we had the collaboration of high-level animators, managing to do work that has a certain weight. My nephew took me to see it again: they showed it in a beautiful theater in Rome packed with young people. I was moved to see that a work that is fifty years old still appeals to the new generations. I hadn’t looked at it for twenty years, but I can say with all sincerity that the Sad waltz of Sibelius and the Bolero by Ravel are beautiful, I’m really proud of them. But I’m also very fond of West and Soda: when we did it we were young and penniless. It was an adventure, we put a passion and fun into it that can no longer be repeated.”
But has he hung up his pencil?
«In a certain sense yes, because the program that I needed to make small animations, and which was wonderful, is no longer accessible. I’ve tried other programs, but they are difficult and, at my age, this technology that should simplify life seems to me to be making it more and more complicated. However, I am preparing a small board game starring one of my characters, the little dog Doggy. Years ago I wrote a new story with my characters Minivip and Supervip to make a second film. It came out as a graphic novelThe mystery of the Via Vai, designed by Gregory Panaccione and published by Bao Publishing, but as often happens in Italy no producers were found for the film.”
Bao is also the editor of Zerocalcare. Have you met?
«We met several times. I think I was the first to suggest he turn his stories into an animation series. I like him because in his stories he talks about himself, about his life.”
And you too talked about yourself with Mr. Rossi…
«A little yes, but they were still the misadventures of an ordinary man. Now times have changed and so has Mr. Rossi, who will return in a new series for Rai created by my son Andrea, where my little man dressed in red will have to deal with the problems of technology. I complain about it, but sometimes it’s also extraordinary. One day I forgot the gate opener and couldn’t get home. There was no one. I called my son who opened the door… from Saudi Arabia!
How do you explain the success of the anthological exhibition on you that recently took place at the Cineteca di Milano?
«It was supposed to last three months and instead it went on for a year due to the success it had. It was very interactive: you framed a drawing and the film started. Then I had a lot of fun seeing a transparent glass cube and inside there was me, life-size, talking: an incredible thing. And then film screenings, of course, puppets, all my short films. It was a really beautiful thing.”
You have always shown a great sensitivity for nature and anomalies. so much so that he had a pet sheep, which he called Beelen and which he made the protagonist of a series of humorous cartoons. What are animals for you?
«I’m a vegetarian, I don’t even drink milk. If one loves animals, I love them all: it is something that cannot be discussed. You don’t need to eat meat to live well: think of Margherita Hack, Umberto Veronesi, all vegetarians. Even Djokovic, who is a tennis player, perhaps the only one who beat Sinner in this period. He’s a monster, and he’s vegan. I respect animals more than men, because the animal has only one face: if it trusts me it will never betray me. The animal is the purest, cleanest being that exists. Of course, animals kill, but to feed themselves: it is the law of evolution. The lion, after having eaten the gazelle, lies down and the gazelle five meters away from him no longer looks at him. Man kills them all, as long as there is one. The difference is abysmal. Humanity, in general, because at the individual level there are magnificent people, is like a tumor that destroys the organism in which it lives and therefore also itself.”
Among young animation artists, who do you particularly respect?
«Two come to mind, who for me are geniuses: Joshua Held, who lives in Tuscany, and Donato Sansone in Turin, who creates special effects and stories with crazy creativity. But there are many good ones: when they call me to see the works of the students of the Turin Animation Film School, every time I am struck by their skill. Well, it must be said that they are generally very dark, very sad, introverted, not even easy to understand. I, on the other hand, have always preferred the path of smiles. I think the public should also have fun. And then I’ll tell you that humor is a good trick for talking about serious, even tragic, things.”
