Dinner with Leftover
An interview with Tibor Bànòczki and Sarolta Szabo, directors of Leftover
Leftover paints several portraits. Each one of them is linked to food. What made you think of this theme?
Leftover is a fictional animated short film based on unusual personal stories with the concept of eating alone. ‘Eating’ is one of the most important and fundamental terms of life, but since the evolution of humans had been differed from animals, it did not remain ‘only’ a function in life. Nourishment to many people became origin of pleasure and also a social event. It surrounds all feasts, all major happenings in life. Usually it attached to joy, but we also eat with grieving group of people when somebody dies.
Our original inspiration came from our families when many relatives found themselves alone because of different reasons. The idea to tell life stories in the frame of ‘eating alone’ was a really exciting concept for us. With these tiny stories our goal was to show different personal and social problems humanity faces in the world today like loneliness, ageing, eating disorders, fear of isolation.
Why did you choose to show these animated tableaux in a non-linear approach?
Our goal was to create a sketch film about our subject in different geographical places on Earth. We linked together six seemingly unconnected stories. We have found the final form after long experiment period. Our main intention was to create a poetic and strongly cinematic world in this short film.
Each portrait deals with a human-based process. How did you tacled yourself about these different processes and what was your starting point when writing the film?
All these stories come from our research material we have been collecting over the years. Some of them happened in our surroundings, some scenes are incredibly personal, some of them has been born out of encounters and conversations with people during our life in different countries. We felt these stories are all very human, and they will tell something important about ourselves through the ‘extraordinary lens’ of animation.
There are six portraits: a priest, a doctor, a hunter, a slave, a retired woman and a worker. Three men and three women – the parity between them is rare enough to be pointed out. Did you do it on purpose?
We had more stories originally and we had to make a selection to find the best stories to speak about our subject. When we were developing the script and the film it was essential for us to show different characters in point of gender, age, origin, occupation and circumstances. Beside it was very important to us to have strong female characters, which confront these issues and problems. Unfortunately animation films are just like other parts of the film world: they lack diverse female characters.
Your animation work takes us to very different worlds. Did you intentionally design these spaces in non-communicating areas? How do you work on your animations?
Somehow all of our characters are living on the edge of society. We choose the locations of the scenes to strongly emphasize the social, economic and geographic isolation. Sometimes these stories are tragic, sometimes they filled with unusual, funny or bizarre elements. There are moments when things turn into surreal, presenting animation as one of the most powerful medium to show the obscurity and absurdity of reality. The most amazing thing in animation that we can ‘shoot’ anywhere in the world: deep in the jungle, on the top of a skyscraper in the biggest storm or on the death row of a prison. It does not cause extra difficulties in the production and offers a lot of freedom in storytelling.
You also paint a last portrait in which you question mealtime as a « social occasion », as a moment when the members of a family or a group have to come together and share space and food. Do you consider this choice as an explanation or a new perspective?
Yes, the final image is a kind of epilogue of the film which summarizes the whole subject. The last scene takes us into a garden lunch, which was interrupted by a storm. Everybody left the table, left the food and drinks there. Where are these people now? We do not know. Will they come back? We do not know. After everybody left nature might take back what belongs to it.
Leftover was produced in France. According to you, what does French production bring to short film that no other would?
The cultural tradition of loving short films is something you can rarely find in other countries. Short films are often hidden behind feature films and many people think of them as a necessary ‘hall’ before you enter into the ‘main room’: the feature film. However we think short film is an autonomous and separate art form in film and luckily France and the French film system thinks that too.
Leftover will be screened in : National Competition F9.
More info Festival screenings so far (2015):
TAMPERE Film Festival, Finland – International Competition
STUTTGART International Festival of Animated Film, Germany – International Competition
ANIMA The Brussels Animation Film Festival, Belgium – International Competition
GO SHORT International Short Film Festival, Netherlands – International Competition
