Sébastien Laudenbach ‘Viva Carmen’ Pitches

One of the more hotly anticipated work-in-progress sessions at this year’s Annecy Animation Festival was for “Viva Carmen,” a new feature from director Sébastien Laudenbach.

 At the 2023 edition of the festival, his feature “Chicken for Linda!”—which he co-directed with his partner Chiara Malta—took top honors, and for good reason. It was a ravishing, vibrantly colored, light-hearted film that trusted its young audience to engage with reflections not just on death and grief but also on proletarian solidarity (the children go on strike and throw sweets at a bumbling police officer).

Laudenbach’s new film “Viva Carmen” has a similar mission: to translate Georges Bizet’s famous opera to a younger audience without compromising the themes and music that have contributed to its longevity.

The film is “an adaptation of ‘Carmen,’ but also a spin-off,” as much of the perspective comes from Salva, a 13-year-old street kid in 1840s Andalusia who knows Carmen (age 20) is going to die and tries everything he can to stop it. This approach to the opera is, in the team’s eyes, all about finding a new angle on the oft-adapted story to make it their own—and a way to connect with a new young audience (around eight years old, Laudenbach says).

The director noted that he’s also interested in the journey of making the film, not just the result. The session opened with a behind-the-scenes video of the team working on-site. Actors performed actions matching characters on the page, and the footage ended on a playful note with actress and singer Camélia Jordana (who voices Carmen) shrinking away after yelling loud enough to disturb neighbors.

This mirrors the approach used in “Chicken for Linda!” where Laudenbach and Malta recorded all sound and dialogue together in real locations. That naturalistic method contrasts with the expressive and heavily stylized linework and color of both features. As Laudenbach explained, his “broken line” style of drawing feels spontaneous and in-the-moment. He prefers to “draw less,” believing the work becomes more expressive that way.

The work-in-progress session featured Laudenbach alongside head of posing Éléa Gobbé-Mévellec (“The Swallows of Kabul”) and composers Amine Bouhafa and Isabelle Laudenbach, the director’s sister—“we’ve known each other for a while,” he joked. The tone was jovial, with the composers bringing musical instruments to perform as Laudenbach sang a quick verse about the film. In discussing design and visual development, the team highlighted screenwriter Santiago Otheguy, art director Cyril Pedrosa and head of backgrounds Élodie Rémy, who previously worked on “Calamity, a Childhood of Martha Jane Cannary.”

Gobbé-Mévellec discussed building on Pedrosa’s initial character designs. She focused on paper and crayon textures, dynamic movement, and the opportunity to use plenty of color while evolving Pedrosa’s initial sketches. This grew from what Gobbé-Mévellec described as a “geometric and formal” approach to character shape and morphology, while balancing the look of Laudenbach’s past work, like the brushstroke gaps in “Chicken for Linda!” or “The Girl Without Hands.”

As in that earlier film, “Viva Carmen” takes an “emotional” approach to color, which, Laudenbach noted, shifts constantly throughout. Gobbé-Mévellec added that Pedrosa’s technical finesse reflects his work with Disney, but “Viva Carmen” is looser and more free-flowing. “This film is animated but with limited drawings,” said Laudenbach. Gobbé-Mévellec added, “…which leaves space for the audience to fill in the gaps, to take ownership of the characters in their minds.”

For the character of Carmen, each team member developed their own version, then worked together to find a balance between the visual imperfections Laudenbach finds charming, the sensuality of Pedrosa’s interpretation and Gobbé-Mévellec’s desire for a younger, less gendered representation. Pedrosa’s visual bible “allowed flexibility,” enabling diverse tones without straying too far from Laudenbach’s visual identity.

As an opera adaptation, music is just as vital to “Viva Carmen” as its brushwork and vibrant color palette. Much of the session focused on process, with Isabelle Laudenbach and Amine Bouhafa using a guitar and keyboard to demonstrate how they adapted Bizet’s motifs into “an original score that is a descendant of the opera rather than a direct lift.”

The composers worked on the score throughout production, drawing inspiration from both animatics and color boards.

“Like a color palette, we took some of those colors […] we picked and chose motifs from all over the work […] we sculpt and stretch them, just like the animation,” Isabelle explained. Given the story’s point of view—street kids like Salva and his friend Belén—the team aimed for a more spontaneous sound. They included intentional imperfections and used contemporary instruments, some inspired by Laudenbach’s background in flamenco and experimental music, as well as instruments from 19th-century Spain. Laudenbach said he wanted to “take advantage of all the musical wealth in Andalusia.”

Bouhafa summed up their musical approach with a personal note: “How can I speak through the language of music to my 8-year-old son?” That mission—to carry a storied legacy, visually, musically and narratively, into the minds of younger audiences without dumbing it down is something “Chicken for Linda!” achieved with grace. It looks like “Viva Carmen” may well do the same.