Still: Down in the Dumps - Vera van Wolferen

Cinelli the ladybird is popular but lacking in confidence, even more so after she loses her lovely shell. Feeling depressed, she withdraws to a strange and disconcerting subterranean cavern. In reality, Cinelli’s shell isn’t lost, it was stolen by Peri the cockroach who didn’t receive an invitation to her party. Not that he is a bad cockroach, he just likes the idea of wearing the shell for a while, which he does, pretending to be Cinelli. But when Peri realises that Cinelli’s life isn’t quite as perfect as he imagined, and a lot more cluttered, he goes in search of her to return the shell…

The story was influenced, in great part, by advice imparted to director Vera van Wolferen by her mother. “When I was young, I think I was maybe 11, my mum said, ‘one day in your life - I don't know when - you're going to feel really, really unhappy and maybe will even think you’re not going to get through this,’” the director tells SEE NL. “Then she said, ‘but you will. I'm telling you this because I've been to those places and you will get through it.’ And it was one of the most important things somebody ever an adult ever told me.”

For van Wolferen, her mum’s words were wise and necessary preparation for life ahead. “When you feel really depressed or sad and you think it's just you and you're all alone in this, when somebody shares with you that you will get through it, that makes it a lot better.”

 That said, Cinelli the ladybird has to work this out for herself. In her sad state – without her beautiful shell she is, after all, just another bug - she encounters a wicked and scary centipede. Only when she decides to open up to the newly-repentant cockroach Peri who has come to find and rescue her, can she begin to be happy again.

“I had a friend in mind when I made the film, who didn't get the advice I received,” van Wolferen adds. “So I guess, in a way, I’m being like my own mother for kids seeing the film.”

The director studied fine art before completing a Masters in animation, hence the beautiful paper crafts that house the animation. “For this film we made a combination of these 3D worlds and then the 2D characters that were done in the computer, and we found a way to match them together,” she says. The film took three and a half years to complete.

With animation, are all potential difficulties ironed out in pre-production? Is there scope for improvisation? Yes and no, van Wolferen responds. “You have an animatic, and you want to have it all crystal clear, but still I like to leave some space. There's one scene in the movie that I think we wrote 10 times, the scene when Peri and Cinelli are inside the centipede. We had so many different versions and at some point we were like, okay, we're just going to start on the production and we'll save this one standalone scene, and then we'll solve it later.”

Van Wolferen intends to create a series of further stand-alone animations about bugs and insects, but within stories where expectations are turned on their heads, such as a lazy ant or a bee that doesn't want to be busy. “Or a caterpillar that doesn't want to change into a butterfly,” the director adds.

“And I would love to make an animated feature film too, but not for kids, more for young adults or women, to show what it is to be a mother,” Van Wolferen, herself a mum, signs off.

Down in the Dumps is produced by Family Affair Films, Festival Distribution: Kapitein Kort. It is supported by The Netherlands Film Fund.

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