20/12/2023 - We met up with the director and producer to talk about the tenth feature film coming from Belgian studios nWave

Jérémie Degruson (left) and Matthieu Zeller

nWave studios were created 30 years ago by Caroline van Iseghem, Eric Dillens and Ben Stassen, the figurehead of the studios who has co-directed each of the first 8 feature films made by nWave. The latter retired a while ago, and Matthieu Zeller has been heading and directing the studios for four years, while Jérémie Degruson (who had already co-director The House of Magic [+see also:
trailer
making of
film profile] and the two Bigfoot [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ben Stassen
film profile] films) is taking solo directing duties on this new film, The Inseparables [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Jérémie Degruson and Matthi…
film profile], now playing in French and Belgian cinemas. Initially specialised in 3D, since 2008 nWave have invested in the area of family animation, competing with American studios and broadcasting their films worldwide. 

Cineuropa: What is this new film,  The Inseparables, about?
Jérémie Degruson:  The Inseparables tells the story of Don, a small puppet with a wild imagination who is tired of playing the jester on stage, and who decides to leave his small theatre to discover the wider world, which for him is Central Park and New York. On his journey, he crosses paths with DJ Doggy Dog, a small plush toy abandoned in Central Park who is looking for a friend and a family. It is first of all a story of adventure and friendship, an ode to imagination, inviting us to get out of our comfort zones in search of magic.

The characters fight to get rid of the roles and identities assigned to them.
JD: At first, Don uses his imagination to escape from his reality, to reinvent himself. But little by little, he’s also going to learn to use his imagination to help others realise themselves. 

The film blends together different textures and animation techniques.
JD: Yes, there are different treatments throughout the film. We stay in a realist register when we follow the characters in their “real” lives, but when Don enters his fantasies and gets lost in his imagination, the look of the film changes completely. 3D is mixed with 2D, which creates something rather surrealist and very colourful. Don mixes together reality and things he’s read in books, which is why we had to create a unique world, entirely his, completely about what goes on in his mind. A broom can become a troll, a manhole cover can turn into a whale, a mini-golf windmill transforms into a dragon… The film is cheerfully inspired by Don Quixote, with Don in the role of the knight, DJ Doggy Dog as Sancho Panza, and Dee as Dulcinea. 

What was the biggest technical challenge for you?
JD: The biggest technical challenge for us lay in the scenes of Don’s imagination, which are in 2D. It’s not something we were used to working with at nWave, where our specialty has always been 3D. We did a lot of research to find visuals that we liked. And of course, there were the scenes with special effects, with water, fire, smoke, food, even confetti, which are hell in terms of animation. 

What were your main influences?
JD:  There was of course Toy Story, since we worked with certain authors of the film on our script. I’m also very inspired by the films of Terry Gilliam, Brazil, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. Because we also take inspiration from Don Quixote, connections are made. And in Don’s fantasies, there is something very surrealist, very Belgian, a bit like Magritte meets Tolkien. 

nWave have established themselves as one of the biggest European animation studios…
Matthieu Zeller: Yes, The Inseparables is animation made in Belgium. The nWave studios are 150 people working year-long, on films that travel all around the world, and which are made in Brussels. Our talents come from all around the world, there are 17 nationalities at our offices. This is already the studios’ tenth film, and our very first feature film was also the very first 3D stereoscopic feature film in the world, Fly Me To The Moon. 

Is there a specific Belgian know-how in the world of animation?
MZ: Yes, clearly there is. I think we can say that nWave is the jewel, but there are many other excellent animation studios in Belgium, working on feature films or series, that are encouraged by the Tax Shelter, but also by the fact that there are many talents both Belgian and foreign installed here, which allows us to create extremely talented team to rival the great Hollywood studios. 

(Translated from French)