First Look at Ari Folman’s Anne Frank Feature
The first images of an animated retelling of the story of Anne Frank, by Israeli filmmaker Ari Folman (Waltz with Bashir, The Congress), have been revealed.
The images, posted by Hebrew-language website Cinemascope, offer a glimpse behind the scenes and the contrasting stylistic approaches of two separate concept tests for the film, including a combination of stop-motion and 2D animation.
Images from an early concept test (which Cinemascope reports ran to three-and-a-half minutes in length) feature hand-drawn 2D characters—character design and animation direction by Waltz with Bashir’s David Polonsky and Yoni Goodman, respectively—superimposed on miniature sets.
Among the scenes pictured: the occupants of the secret annex listen to the radio, Anne wanders among oversized radio tubes (actually a 10-foot set), and Anne imagines the war as a bizarre carnival of color.
The second set of images are behind-the-scenes shots of work in progress on a shorter, more recent and purely stop-motion screen test at Passion Pictures in London. Folman is collaborating with Fantastic Mr. Fox director of photography Tristan Oliver and puppet designer Andy Gent (pictured in one of the below images) to bring Polonsky’s 2D character designs to stop-motion life.
As well as a puppet of Anne Frank herself, Cinemascope reports that Kitty, the imaginary friend to whom Anne addressed her diary entries, is represented—appearing as a young girl in modern dress, toting what may be The Diary of a Young Girl. According to Cinemascope, Folman’s script explores the story of Anne Frank through the eyes of Kitty, a visitor to the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam.
Quoting Folman in November, Den of Geek reported that the film had been conceived as a mixture of stop-motion and animated 2D characters, but that the production was shifting to London to “change it to full stop-motion.”
With Folman still working on securing funding for the project, the Cinemascope article implies that there is some concern on Folman’s part about the higher cost of an all-stop-motion film.
