Rob Munday

On a day when the UK is attempting to get its head around what the results of a second General Election in just over 2 years means for the country and the US reacts to the revelations from the testimony of Former FBI Director James Comey, a film about a power struggle feels like an apt and relevant selection.

Set in a world inhabited by strange beasts, Putsch – by five students of MOPA: L’École du cinéma d’animation – is a novel twist on the ever-popular use of anthropomorphism in the medium. Centred around a community of human-like creatures who have adopted the recognisable attributes of animals, Putsch is a film that examines themes of society and the balance of power.

With the team behind Putsch initially constructing their story by drawing and writing sketches for each of their characters and imagining how they would interact with each other in this society. The overall structure of the narrative for their film was then built from these vignettes.

Opting for an “uncluttered” design for their aesthetic, to put the focus on their unusual humanimal creations, the team worked with dancers to choreograph the movement of their characters, hoping that by using real life actions they could “see what the human body was capable of when imitating animal behaviours”.

With author of the project Florent Bossoutrot revealing (in this ‘Making of’ video from 2-years ago) the film was created to “support the idea that even if the power changes, the life of the common people isn’t changed”, I wonder if this is a statement he’d now reconsider with some of the recent changes in political power?