Interview with Agata Novinski about the film Living Large at KVIFF 2024

Agata Novinski is a film producer based in Bratislava, Slovakia. She studied film production at the Academy of Performing Arts (VŠMU) in Bratislava. After graduation, she worked as a production assistant and assistant director on major TV shows and programs. For a few years, she was a sales manager, handling advertising space for commercial television networks. Since 2014, she has been actively involved in film and TV production. Since 2018, she has been working for Novinski as a producer and as an executive producer of TV and film projects. From 2019 until the end of 2023, she held the position of the Executive Director of the Slovak Film and Television Academy.

Living Large is a trilateral co-production between the Czech company Barletta, the Slovak company Novinski and the French company Novanima. How did this collaboration emerge?

The idea for the film was born thirteen years ago when the director Kristina Dufková was reading the book La vie, en gros to her then-teenage daughter. At that time, there were very few films and TV series on the market for this target group. The story appealed to Kristina so much that she decided to turn it into a feature-length animated film. She approached Veronika Sabová, at that time a development producer at Barletta Productions, and they applied for a grant at MEDIA Europe and the Czech Film Fund. Both applications were successful, so there was nothing stopping us from applying for development on the Slovak side as well.

We started developing the film as a Czech and Slovak parity and for a long time, we thought it would stay that way. As the development progressed, we realized how ambitious the project was and recognized that we needed the support of one more party. Since the film was based on an adaptation of a French book, we naturally decided to look for a partner in France. Coincidentally, at that time, together with the director Mária Kralovič, I attended the Euro Connection co-production forum in Clermont-Ferrand, where we met the French producer Marc Faye. I approached him to collaborate on both upcoming projects – the short film Tourists and the feature Living Large.

What attracted you to the project?

The film is about love for life and your loved ones, but mostly about a healthy love for yourself. It emphasizes the importance of learning to love ourselves as we are while pointing out the fact that things that seem insurmountable at the beginning can seem quite trivial from a different perspective. That is why it is important not to lose hope and follow your dreams. For me personally, the theme of healthy self-love is extremely important. I grew up in a world where it was inappropriate to say that I like myself, and I think that many times it is the fact that we don’t like ourselves what causes us quite a few problems in our lives. We should talk more about this subject so that we can have a nicer world, not just for ourselves, but for everyone around us.

This is the first animated feature film produced by Novinski. How do you rate this experience?

Coincidentally, this is the first animated feature film not only for Novinski, but also for Barletta, Novanima, and even for the director. Perhaps that is why we all approached the whole process with immense humility and I am very grateful that even after all these long years of collaboration, we still like each other, trust each other, and are already developing another film together.

It’s fantastic to witness the film’s story unfold as audiences watch it for the first time. I’m very happy that the film was selected for the competition section at Annecy, the biggest animation film festival in the world, where we managed to win the Contrechamp Jury Prize. The film is currently in competition at the Shanghai International Film Festival, where there are only five animated films from around the world in our section, and at the end of the month, the audience can see it at the Karlovy Vary festival and then in La Rochelle. The premiere in Slovakia is planned for October this year.

The director of the film is Kristina Dufková and the script was written by Petr Jarchovský in collaboration with Barbora Dřevikovská and Anna Vášová. However, a Slovak team also contributed significantly to the film. How did this project influence the Slovak film industry?

Our film is created using stop-motion animation technique, which means that you need to shoot for more than two years in an animation studio. Since Kristina lives in Prague, it was a natural choice to situate the filming there. However, Slovak filmmakers were also involved in the process. Animator Martin Smatana and cinematographer Juraj Chlpík assisted us in the development and workflow setup, followed by Tomáš Červený, Mária Kralovič and Marek Jasaň, who worked on the film as animators. The DoP Václav Fronk was assisted by Simona Weisslechner. The construction of the sets in Slovakia was carried out by František Lipták and Peter Kostroň.

I am glad that we were able to facilitate internships for two Slovak animation students from the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava, Emma Virág Csuport and Romana Candráková, who spent two months in Prague during filming.The film was edited by Matej Beneš, with music composed by Michal Novinski, and featured music by the Slovak band Walter Schnitzelson. Some parts of the film also use 2D animation, the design of which we entrusted to the Slovak animator Mária Kralovič. The music was recorded in Slovakia and the Slovak team worked on the visual post-production.

What other projects are you currently working on?

We have a short film Tourists by Mária Kralovič in production and we are developing two animated feature films. At the same time we are developing some other fiction projects in minority co-production.

What do you see as the strongest points of Slovak animation that could attract foreign producers?

Animation is unique in that it has no limitations and thanks to the language mutations, it can reach audiences in every region. Living Large was made in Slovak, Czech, French, and English, but we already know that many more mutations will be created thanks to successful sales. Even before the first release, we have managed to sell the film to Japan, Spain, Portugal, the Balkans, the former Yugoslavia, and the Middle East countries. Belgium and more countries are joining later. Currently we have Sweden, Norway and Poland confirmed. At the same time, we have secured distribution with some airlines.

Slovak animation is currently in fantastic shape, as evidenced by the impressive achievement at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival. Out of a record 3,380 entries from 108 countries, six films by Slovak filmmakers were selected for presentation, with three of them receiving awards. This success underscores the world-class talent of Slovak filmmakers in the animation industry.