FOOTSTEPS ON THE WIND
DIRECTED BY GUSTAVO LEAL, FAGA MELO, MAYA SANBAR
UNITED KINGDOM // 2021
7 MINS
Footsteps on the Wind follows the plight of Noor and her little brother, Josef as they journey far away from home, orphaned from a devastating earthquake. The story highlights the tragic stories of unaccompanied child refugees.
Reflective Encounters
“Footsteps on the Wind displays a world of disruption, separation, and disaster. Its vision of a family torn apart is expanded to a biblical scale, featuring a seismic flood that fractures the earth itself. In this hectic setting there is also the presence of beauty and possibility. The siblings’ split from their parents turns into an adventure with visual hints to Jules Verne. Ocean creatures morph into surreal monsters in a fantastic sequence where the siblings’ traverse the seabed. Using such surreal imagery is a bold move when tackling real-world subjects. Yet this gamble seems to elevate the emotional intensity of its message, an intensity that realism might not have achieved.
The short displays some impressive performances animated with precise linework. The character design is pitched somewhere between the realms of cartoon aesthetics and realism. It’s an approach which allows for the tone’s seamless shift from safety to threat. The summery colour palette serves a similar purpose of cloaking the film’s darker elements. The short’s blissful blue skies wouldn’t seem out of place in the films of anime master Makoto Shinkai (Your Name, 2016). E. H. Shepherd’s homely children’s illustrations could also be inspirations for the short’s backgrounds.”
— Chris Childs
Filmmaker Q&A
A Q&A with filmmakers from the Far From Home programme at Encounters Film Festival 2021.
Filmmakers - Hugo Caby (Migrants), Jalal Maghout (Have a Nice Dog!) and Maya Sanbar (Footsteps on the Wind)
Hosted by Ren Scateni, Encounters Head of Programme.
Director’s Statement
Like many films, this one has been a labour of love, and our intention is for it to create a ripple effect that will spread understanding and hope through the art of film. Because we intend it to be used as a storytelling therapy tool for anyone who has experienced loss or displacement, it was important for us to work with psychologists and refugees in workshops so that the story is told in a sensitive way based on truth, and can resonate in both a universal and personal way - a delicate balance to strike!
Having experienced the trauma of the refugee experience through my own family history, it was essential to get the tone and imagery to resonate with the plight of so many children globally who have become refugees - whether it be the result of war, climate change, poverty or natural disaster. Inspired by Sting's song "Inshallah", which he has kindly donated to our film, we wanted to tell the story of refugees from a fresh point of view.
Animation is a way of making it a universal story and we worked hard on finding characters that could encompass a wide range of racial and social features. For this reason, creating a visual emotional language, beyond words so that it could travel easily around the world without translation, was key.
The song itself is hypnotic like the sea, like any long walk journey, and the "inshallah" voices over credits at the end reflect the fact that although an animation this is also a real-life story for many. The beauty of animation allows the viewer and the creator to use the right side of the brain to communicate on many levels beyond logic and beyond words.
That is the choice I made with this film because live-action and documentary would be too harsh to achieve the storytelling therapy objective, and audiences have become immune to the emotion and everyday reality of refugees they see on the evening news. The art of animation allows us to place clues and symbols in the film that the viewer can uncover over the several times he or she watches it, and the palette is broad enough to be able to transfer own personal experiences within it.
Using traditional fairytale references to resonate familiarity, from Jack and the Beanstalk to the Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland, we've endeavored to create our own tale of hope and resilience through adversity, in a bitesize shape of an artwork - that we've been pleased to hear viewers of the trailer relate to Studio Ghibli with a Brazilian twist!
This has put wind in our sails, and any further recognition will empower the film to continue on its journey.
Filmmaker Bio
Maya is an Artist and Filmmaker. Her work in both moving image and installation is centered on the art of storytelling. Footsteps on the Wind is her directorial debut in the narrative and animation world. Her experience is varied, her artworks being often collaborative and enabling of others adding their voices to a central theme.
In relation to this film, aside from her own family refugee history, she sought out the depth of emotional truth within refugee stories via therapy workshops, ensuring that this is a film about refugees, told by refugees, for refugees and the general public young and old.
As a multimedia artist, her work has been exhibited internationally, notably installations at Shoreditch Town Hall in London “Waiting” 2015, the Rubin Museum of Art in New York City “Alex in Wonderland” scented experience (2016), and at the Berlin Wall on the 30th anniversary of its fall “Chasing the Light” (2019), "Words on the Hill" at the Coronet Theatre in London (2020).
Her film production credits include 360 immersion visits to artist studios and documentaries. Gustavo Leal is a publicist from Varginha - Minas Gerais, worked as an art director in some of the most important advertising agencies in Brazil such as DM9DDB and Wunderman for global brands like Microsoft, Intel, and Chevrolet.
In 2013, his passion for storytelling, design, and illustration spoke louder and he decided to open Dirty Work, a film production company. Faga Melo is a filmmaker and motion graphics artist, born in São Gonçalo - Rio de Janeiro, studied Cinema in São Paulo and Los Angeles, has worked between the production of advertising films, content for Cinema, TV, and stages such as Rod Stewart World Tour and Paralympic Games.
In 2016, he started to work as a Duo with Gustavo and were immediately able to put into practice the combination of their singular taste for things in every opportunity. They are driven by a collaborative and horizontal way of work that aims at the contribution of all the people involved in the production, besides, of course, the endless seek of the most original possible way to tell a good story. Passionate about illustration, photography, cinema, and animation, Leal and Faga are always looking for new experiments and techniques to evolve in each project they direct.
Their distinctive formations and self-taught spirits enable the Duo to dive into different languages and techniques of the animation world. 2D, Traditional, 3D, Stop-motion, and Live Action with animation. As a result, today they own an authentic language, which has been gaining more and more space in the national and international market ahead of Dirty Work's creative direction.