Rob Munday
As a programmer who watches hundreds of short films every year, I can promise you there’s no joy in penning a rejection letter. Although you do become somewhat numb to the process and recognise it as an important experience for both the curator and the filmmaker, it’s never fun declining a submission. You always hope that the creators behind the film don’t take it personally, but you’re also aware that these knock-backs can build-up and dent confidence. For what must be a universal milestone in a filmmaker’s journey there doesn’t seem to be a lot of discussion around the subject and it’s surprising more directors haven’t tackled these themes in their work. One filmmaker looking to shine a light on the experience and inspire others to continue to create, despite the pain of rejection and self-doubt, is Anna Samo (The Opposites Game) with her latest animated short Conversation with a Whale.
“My first film after graduation from film school did not do as well in the festival circuit as I hoped”, Samo explains as we discuss the inspiration behind her short. “Spoiled with the previous festival success of my student days, I was expecting things to be the same for my new film. However, I found myself having to devour one festival rejection after another. At some point, completely overwhelmed by the amount of negative answers, I created a folder in my inbox with an intention to collect and preserve those rejection e-mails for later use”. Although that may have seemed like a self-deprecating action, Samo instead used these messages as motivation and set off on a creative journey to explore why they hampered her enthusiasm for filmmaking.
The outcome of that reflective exercise is Conversations with a Whale, a 9-minute animated film that provides a behind-the-scenes look at both the filmmaking process and the impact rejection can have on an artist. As we watch an animation be created and then submitted to festivals, via paper airplane, we join Samo’s caped creative in the waiting game, idling time until a response arrives. When one finally appears, a rejection (again via paper airplane), we witness the impact it has on our on-screen character. As more decline messages conclude their journey at the protagonist’s destination, they instigate a fire, which quickly threatens their mental and physical wellbeing.
Conversations with a Whale employs various analogue animation techniques to bring its story to screen.
Born from Samo’s urge to reinvent her own creative process, the filmmaker began to question her motivations, asking: “Why do I make films? Is it the success I long for and depend on? Does anyone need what I am doing? And if no one needs it, do I still have the right to do it?” This line of questioning led the director to realize that, since she spent so much time animating, she needed something more than recognition from her work, there needed to be personal growth and a feeling of self-worth attached to a project. Making her approach more organic and intuitive was the first step, and though Samo reveals it was “scary and annoying” not knowing the exact direction the film would take, she also found it “brought more excitement into each phase of the filmmaking”.
This looser, freer approach is not only noticeable in the narrative of Conversations with a Whale, but it shines through in the film’s aesthetic as well. Abandoning her usual meticulous pre-production routine, which Samo says could often make her feel like a “prisoner of the frames” during production, the director instead let her short be “born on the animation table”. Spending the first couple of months experimenting with different materials, she describes the making of the film as “like building a jigsaw puzzle” where you don’t know you have all the pieces. Crediting her friends and peers for helping to shape the film with their feedback, Samo’s poetic description of the need to create feels like the perfect way to wrap this article: “If you are a fig tree you have to bear fruits. If you are an artist you have to make art”.
A clever concept with appeal to both fellow filmmakers and empathetic programmers, Conversations with a Whale had an impressive festival run playing Annecy, ITFS and Go Short. If rejection was the motivation behind this short, it’ll be interesting to see whether its success influences Samo’s next creation. We’ll be following along, monitoring both her Vimeo and Instagram, going forward.