Nattmara - The Night of the Witch (2024 - 2026)

Student short film – Fantasy drama - 7mn 48 - Selected for the MIFA Student Pitch at the 2026 Annecy Festival

One of the two student films I was fortunate enough to supervise at École de Condé Rennes in my role as their lead instructor in the Animation Cinema programme. I guided them throughout the two years of production, from developing the shared universe linking the two short films – based on a voting system involving each of the eight students – right through to establishing an initial plot outline.

At the same time, I introduced them to project management, to the point where, for Nattmara, I was able to assist Perrine Zindel in writing her first script. As a character design lecturer, I then helped them develop designs that were as animatable as possible.

Rather than restricting their freedom in any way, I was keen for them to be able to see their ideas through to the end. A student film is not intended to be a commercial success, to turn a profit or to perfectly fulfil its specifications. It is full of setbacks, reworks and learning experiences. So, when the projects exceeded the 10-minute mark – instead of the 4 minutes initially announced – and ended up running to around 7 minutes, my role was to work with them to make that possible. Whatever the cost on my part.

And it is with immense pride that I can say: they have fully achieved this.

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Synopsis & Letter of Intent

You can find the English version here.

Gestion de projet

As there were eight students, the ideal solution for both them and the school was to produce two short films. However, splitting the class into two separate groups presented several problems: firstly, we did not have enough specialist animators to properly ensure that both films would meet the required standard of animation. Secondly, and this was something that bothered me more personally as the person in charge of coordinating the department.

Even if we are skilled or experienced, we can never be certain of producing a film as good as we imagine. Making mistakes, failing, and stumbling are all human actions, which students—who are, after all, still learning—are particularly prone to committing. These are mistakes that I, too, could have made.

Taking the risk of writing off half of my first Master’s graduates was out of the question. So I decided to help the students create a universe that would narratively link the two short films, but with different artistic directions and themes for each film, so that they could fully express the breadth of their tastes and abilities. One person would be dedicated to art direction in each team, whilst the rest would rotate between the films depending on production needs.

However, this idea required a great deal of preparation in advance: they needed to ensure that their ambitions did not exceed their resources, whilst retaining enough to keep them engaged. This led to around sixty hours of project management and mind mapping until they had established the shared universe for both films:

And once that was done, we then had to focus on feasibility and project management. Right at the end of the first year of the Master’s programme, one of the students who had volunteered, Nicolas Richard, created a range of production schedules, progress reports and Gantt charts… And although I supported and guided him throughout, I would like to give him all the credit. Bravo!

Films & Artbook

If you want to know more about this film, please do check here.