The Malta-produced Tele-Monkey starts showing at the Empire Cinema this week. Paula Fleri Soler gets a behind-the-scenes tour from filmmaker Martin Bonnici.

What’s the ultimate purpose of television shopping? That is the question posed by Joe the monkey, in the 3D short film Tele-Monkey, produced by Shadeena Films, and showing exclusively at the Empire Cinemas in Bugibba as from this week.

Anyone who has flopped on the sofa in front of TV to channel-surf only to find Teleshopping seemingly on every channel will empathise with the film’s hapless hero whose every waking moment is consumed by sales and advertising – whether it’s at work, on the streets or at home.

Joe is desperate to understand the meaning behind the world’s obsession with advertising and TV-shopping, which attempts to sell us anything from fitness machines and furniture to jewellery and ‘miraculous’ beauty products... you name it, they are selling it.

And so, amid the cacophony of the invasive bombardment of images on television, the internet, and billboards hogging the streets, Joe hopes to find and understand the truth.

Tele-Monkey is a stylish animated short, written, produced and directed by Martin Bonnici with whom I sat down to watch the final product. The film, the first Malta-produced animated short to be filmed in 3D, proves to be an amusing take on a very original idea and boasts some startling animation that brings Joe to life, and in its brief running time, it certainly rams the point home.

During our conversation, Bonnici confessed to a passion for advertising, which is after all, an art form in itself. I posit the idea that Teleshopping can be described as the antithesis of the artistic side of advertising. Is this what inspired Tele-Monkey?

“In part yes,” says Bonnici. “Teleshopping was the inspiration for Tele-Monkey but it’s not the only culprit. If you look at TV adverts, billboards, posters and even coupon magazines, a lot of the work is quite bland and uninspiring if not downright ugly.”

He adds that “unfortunately some people seem to believe that it’s not the quality of the message you’re putting across that counts, but simply the amount of times it’s seen. I find that this idea litters our society with content of questionable quality and so I decided to look at a world where things have gotten out of hand and this kind of advertising has taken over.”

I wonder therefore, what it is that Bonnici, through his protagonist Joe the monkey, is ultimately trying to say.

“I guess it’s more of a question to the audience,” he counters. “Do we really need to have adverts splashed all over the place? Do we need adverts on bus stops, buses, seats, safety guards and billboards? And is because TV stations rely on Teleshopping to fill in the hours and generate a profit a good sign or is it a sign that our broadcasting system is not functioning well?”

To illustrate his arguments, Bonnici cites an incident in 2006 when the mayor of San Paolo in Brazil actually banned all forms of posters, billboards and advertising signage from the city. “The change it brought about was not only in removing what they termed visual pollution from the city but it also revitalised the advertising industry, with some agencies realising that billboards were extremely ineffective at interacting with their audience,” said Bonnici.

“I do not expect Tele-Monkey to bring about any revolution in the standards and the use of advertising, but I’d be happy if even a small percentage of the audience realise how present commercial messages are in our lives.”

The short film format is very popular with Maltese filmmakers. I ask Bonnici what challenges he faces in having only a few minutes to tell a story.

“In every story there are things that need to be set for the audience to understand what the story is all about” he says. “Time, place, characters and the characters’ goals or needs all need to be established. Obviously the shorter time you have the harder it gets to put these across.”

He is very honest in saying that “in retrospect I feel that some aspects of Tele-Monkey do not come across as clearly as they should have and certain themes should have been explored better but we have to accept the limitations that film is prone to due to budget and time restraints as well as the fact that we are all learning as we go along.”

Given the rather provocative nature of the film, does Bonnici expect a reaction from the advertising industry? “Yes and no. The advertising and production industries in Malta seem to be divided into two groups, those that aspire to integrate with the global industry by achieving their standards and those content to make a quick buck revisiting the same old concepts and churning out quick and unimaginative campaigns.

“So far I’ve received a lot of support from those that, like me, would like to see standards improve, and collaborations with such like-minded agencies and individuals are on the rise. The other side of the industry hasn’t reached out yet and I don’t really expect them to.”

And finally I ask what he hopes audiences will take away from the film.

“Hopefully they’ll take away at least a couple of laughs, and beyond that maybe become more aware of advertising and how it is slowly creeping into too many parts of our lives.”