Pablo Berger continues on his path of forming one of the most eclectic filmographies of Spanish cinema And now its time for a new format animation Berger director of Torremolinos 73 2003 Blancanieves 2012 and Abracadabra 2017 is working on the adaptation of Robot Dreams Sara Varons 2007 graphic novel.
The story of friendship between a dog and his robot and the memories of that relationship Berger once again has the backing of Arcadia Motion Pictures for a production that the filmmaker calls another triple somersault
He has been in the project for months now and last Friday José Luis Agreda was working by his sideas an art director a facet in which he made his talent clear his facet as an illustrator is well known in Buñuel y el labyrinth of the turtlesActually Berger confesses.
Im in animation because of the story because of the graphic novel On a trip to Chicago where he was to be a judge at its film festival Berger stayed on a stopover in New York the city where he lived for a decade to chat with Varon and convince her to sell him the rights.
I am already used to not So from there I launched the proposal and my intention about his work I think my passion convinced him he recalls He said yes and thats when the negotiations with his agents began But in that joint cafe I felt complicity And he launched into it from the pandemic The project was launched just when the first state of alarm arrived.
Berger wants the film at least in its setting to be a tribute to the New York in which he lived the one in the eighties The idea is to respect Saras spirit because in animation the heart is in the story He talks about friendship and its fragility with a lot of humor and emotion.
Those ingredients and their characters will be there he assures However I warned Sara that I wanted New York to take more prominence than on its pages Im not very nostalgic but this time I will be The script was written by me Sara gave us carte blanche and after seeing our first teaser trailer she wrote to me saying she was fascinated The team feels that the author is behind it
Graphically it will stay true to the clear line of Varon I came to the cinema from the comic It devoured them Even my first shortMama it was based on a cartoon by Philippe Vuillemin José Luis and I are all the time repeating the clear line Saras stroke And we love the design of her characters The funds will vary which will be threedimensional to bring us closer to that New York
For the Bilbaoborn filmmaker if in any other of his films Robot Dreams is going to resemble Snow White because as in the book there will be zero dialogues And he explains
What interests me most about cinema is writing with images and using music and for this reason I wanted to return to a special experience like the process of creating Snow White In this case the last act of the book moved me and taught me that there was something there With anthropomorphic animals robots and New York the only way was to film animation Robot Dreams is scheduled to premiere in 2023.