VivaSync

Though it might sometimes fly under the radar of Oscar prognosticators, the animated short category has always been rife with innovation and talented emerging voices, and this year’s crop of contenders is no exception. One short making particular waves on the festival circuit: “The Musician,” from writer-director Reza Riahi.

Along with producer Eleanor Coleman, Riahi discussed the years-long road to completion of “The Musician,” a dialogue-free tale of love and loss set in 13th century Persia during the Mongolian invasions. Using stop-motion techniques with paper cut-outs, the film was inspired by the sound of the traditional Persian stringed instrument the kamancheh.

Riahi says: “I had listened to this instrument for years, but after I moved to France from Iran I started to listen to it more and more, and the heritage of the music really struck me. Then I started to do the very first draft.” He later recruited Tehran-based musician Saba Alizadeh to compose and perform a kamancheh score.

The film’s distinctive aesthetic comes from the use of paper cut-outs and hand-painted backgrounds, which lend the film an unusual degree of DIY dimensionality. “I think what really works in the film is that you really believe in the characters,” Coleman says. “We don’t try to cover up the fact that these are handmade puppets; you can see the edges. And instead of that being distracting, I think it actually helps draw people into the film.”

She continues: “Stop motion is kind of having a renaissance right now. There are so many stop motion projects with very different budgets, but there’s something in stop motion where, especially if you have a limited budget, there’s kind of an accidental quality that makes it very real.”

Riahi and Coleman trace their professional relationship back to a meeting at l’Ecole de la Poudrière in Bourg-Les-Valences while Riahi was still a student. It was there that he began writing “The Musician” in 2014, only to put it on the backburner for a few years to join production of Nora Twomey’s Oscar-nominated “The Breadwinner” as art director. After finishing that project, Riahi and Coleman assembled a small team to work on “The Musician,” finally debuting the film at the Toronto Intl. Film Festival. It has since gone on to play at fests all over, winning best animated short honors at last year’s Tribeca Festival.

“I’m very struck that by that the fact that in North America and other countries, [audiences] really liked it, they understood the characters, and they understood the what’s happened, even though maybe they don’t care about the Mongol attacks or Persia,” Riahi says. “Because the historical thing was only an excuse to make these characters, and to make a very human message with them.”

Watch the full discussion above.

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