Federico TocchellaFederico Tocchella

Federico Tocchella’s film Isaac, which he wrote, directed and animated, won the Best Script and Foreign Jury awards at the recent 2014 Malta Short Film Festival, which was supported by the Malta Arts Fun and the Local Culture Initiative Fund.

The film is a highly imaginative recreation of the biblical story of Abraham and Isaac. The story is told by a little kid in a modern park, using clay figures. Does this particular biblical tale have any personal resonance for the director?

“Yes,” replies Tocchella immediately. “I’ve known this story since I was very young, because I come from a Catholic family and a Catholic nation.

“One day, I started to see this story from another point of view, because the story as written is between Abraham and God, between man and God. So, it’s a story about faith in God.

“Yet, I realised that Isaac, the child, has no life or emotions. It seems that he is only an object used for a purpose, so I tried to give life to him through children and see what happens.”

Warming to his argument, Tocchella elaborates further. “You discover that behind the story is the human story of the relationship between father and son and also the betrayal of the trust the son has in his father.”

Tocchella adds that a scene towards the end of the film, a rather disturbing sequence where a crowd of people celebrate Abraham’s actions, is representative of the cult of religion – of how people often follow religion blindly while being oblivious to the actions being carried out in the name of religion – something we see all too often nowadays in the news.

“If you don’t want to acknowledge the child, it is a great story about faith in God. But if you do see the child, there is violence in the story. It is essentially saying that to have faith in God, you have to kill a child, kill another human being.”

People often follow religion blindly while being oblivious to the actions being carried out in the name of religion

Isaac boasts a combination of live action and animation. It is grounded by an excellent performance as Isaac from seven-year-old Anatol Sassi.

Sassi, Tocchella says, acted so professionally and maturely on set that even his own mother did not recognise him.

Also notable is the seamless blend of stop-motion and computer-generated animation that bring Isaac’s clay figures to life.

The film took two years to complete, keeping Tocchella, who wrote, produced, directed and animated the film, rather busy. “I always want quality in my projects,” says the multi-tasking film-maker.

“But for quality, you need money and I had very little money and I used that to pay the crew on the live-action side because without good people on the set I couldn’t do this job.”

Tocchella then had to do the rest pretty much himself, his economic situation dictating the techniques he chose.

Yet, he carried on undaunted, acknowledging that when faced with problems, he started to create new things.

“In fact, I tested a particular way of animating the clay character. I did some stop-motion animation and then placed the images inside the computer and mixed them in, because it is difficult to insert stop motion inside live action shooting. This method gave remarkable fluidity to what was very cheap animation.”

Tocchella clearly works well with animation, but confesses that although he comes from an animation school, he prefers live action. He uses animation as a tool to be able to express his ideas and illustrate his stories better.

“Animation is fun because you can do it by yourself, and it is a very fast way to do things. The great thing about animation is that you are free and you can think what you want, you can do what you want.”

Tocchella is currently working on two projects. He has just started work on his first feature film (“which will be ready in 15 years’ time because I am waiting for money,” he jokes) and also a new short film that is inspired by Lorenzo Bernini’s popular sculpture Il Ratto di Proserpina and the mythological story Amore e Psiche by Roman writer and philosopher Apuleio. He enthusiastically shows pictures of the version he has recreated of the former.

“It is the story of a woman who is running away in the dark from someone who wants to attack her. But she doesn’t see him, she only feels him,” he explains. “This is the idea and it will be live action, with some effects I want to create with paintings. So I have some experiments to do,” he says with a smile.

So will we see this short film competing in the MSFF in two years’ time? “No, I actually hope to come here to shoot part of the film,” he says, excitedly, confessing to having fallen in love with Malta during his short stay here.

So Tocchella will certainly be back and, undoubtedly, the finished product will certainly feature in a future festival.

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