Salvador Simó, director of 'Dragonkeeper': “Those of us who dedicate ourselves to animated films are foolish”

-I told Juan Antonio Vigar (director of the Malaga Festival) that I am creating a tradition and that I am going to have to premiere all my films at the Festival. “Poor you if you don't do it” he told me (Laughs). The truth is that all of us who have been part of this story are delighted that after two pandemics, the Chinese one and the Spanish one, we can come to Malaga to premiere it. It's something that makes everything worth it.

-It has jumped from telling a Spanish, Extremaduran story, Las Hurdes, with a world-known character like Buñuel to immersing you in a Chinese story of dragons. What is this change due to?

-Well, I have been working in animation for 35 years, most of them in commercial series, so my natural field would rather be this one, 'Dragonkeeper'. With Buñuel in the Turtles' Labyrinth I set out to find my own language, my own voice… But it helped me for this film, it helped me face this blockbuster in a different way. Although the film is purely commercial, I can't stop finding things about Buñuel… and how important he has been for me when it comes to facing these new stories.

-Because 'Dragonkeeper' is a trilogy.

-Yes, the Carole Wilkinson trilogy is written and we have the rights to the novels.

-It is an animated film with a character that has nothing to do with the animation we are used to. I guess it was one of the hardest decisions, the appearance of the characters on screen.

-Yes, we wanted to explore a much more realistic innovation, I would say more subtle and minimalist. We have avoided falling into typical Pixar animation, in which expressions take up a lot of space; Subtlety was important to us, it is something that we believe will help the audience connect better with the characters. We didn't want to give all the information to the audience. The important thing is to make the viewer see that the characters are alive, that they think for themselves, but at the same time that is the most difficult thing. Today I can say that the work that has been done on this film is some of the best that has ever been done in Spain, something brutal done by Spaniards.

-The film is sometimes very dramatic, too much for a child audience?

-We are all aware of it. But children must be treated in a more respectful way because they are very intelligent people, capable of distinguishing things. Nowadays children watch a news program where there is much more violence, a Netflix series where there is much more harshness… Also now in animated films there is a certain harshness, but it is reality. I think that is precisely what makes the audience connect, because you are not softening anything, you are telling them things as they are. Obviously within limits, but children already know that in Ancient China people were treated like this. We must not hide it, we have to be aware of what has happened, precisely so that it does not happen again.

-It is an animated film about dragons that do not breathe fire telling us a classic Chinese mythological story co-directed by a group of Spanish animators. A project like this must have a very special production.

-The truth is that this film has its own personality, it is a co-production between Spain and China, a country that does not have many bilateral production agreements but does have with Spain. All Chinese production, including direction, was a cultural advisory work, protecting a little the essence of its own culture. The purely cinematic making of the film was part of us.

-'Dragonkeeper' is released almost coinciding with the recent Oscar nomination of 'Robot Dreams'. Spanish animation is experiencing a sweet moment…

-We will see 'Robot Dreams' competing at the Oscars against films with incredible budgets. If they saw the budget for 'Robot Dreams' in Hollywood they would fall to the ground, and we are there, with the Americans and Japanese. The truth is that a type of work like animation, whose results are not visible until four years after starting it in the best of cases, makes us foolish people (Laughs). But the animation is very important, it is what is filling the rooms again.