Spanish director María Trénor had been developing her debut feature, the Annecy competition title Rock Bottom, for seven years before she found her producer in Alba Sotorra.
Trénor had struggled to find a producer capable of securing the financing to the musical based on the lives of ex-Soft Machine vocalist and drummer Robert Wyatt and his lyricist-illustrator and partner Alfreda Benge.
A love story between a young artist couple set in the 1970s and rendered by 2D rotoscoping, it was inspired by Wyatt’s legendary album ‘Rock Bottom’, recorded in 1974 and featuring collaborations with friends like Pink Floyd’s drummer Nick Mason, a young Mike Oldfield, Fred Frith, and Hugh Hopper. Alfreda Benge created the cover art depicting the bottom of the sea.
Notable figures such as Julian Schnabel, opera directors like Bob Wilson, and influential musicians like Brian Eno had previously expressed interest in adapting the album into film or opera. And now Trénor, an artist from Valencia had the idea to do it in animation.
Trénor recalls the days when, in the spring of 2014, she travelled to a small village in the English countryside to ask Wyatt for the album adaptation rights. “We went for a walk around town,” she says. “I told him about everything I had imagined, but I added, ‘I know I’m not Elvis Costello, or Brian Eno, or Björk, or so many famous artists with whom you usually collaborate, but how would you like it if I made an animated musical film with the Rock Bottom album?’ With his good humour, he answered, ’Do whatever you want’.”
Sotorra says she was also drawn to the project and how it promised to show how Wyatt’s work represented a beacon of creative freedom. “I was fascinated with the idea of bringing Wyatt’s album to the animation arena and the peculiar poetry of the lyrics,” she says. “When I saw María’s drawings and the entire visual proposal, I was completely convinced.”
In 2021, funding began with Spanish production grants — including those from Spain’s film body ICAA, and regional bodies from Catalonia and Valencia, ICEC and IVC respectively. By 2022, the first animatics were created, and by the end of the year, the first animators were hired. With a small studio established, the film was completed in May of this year.
The project was presented at animated film co-production event,Cartoon Movie in 2020 and 2021. It had also previously been pitched at MIFA’s Annecy, supported by a different producer. Last year, it was showcased in the Annecy Animation showcase in the Cannes market with Sotorra on board.
The production structure includesSotorra, Alicante’s Jaibo Films, and two Polish companies, GS Animation and Likaon. Paris-based Loco Films is handling international sales.
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