Italian film director Stefano Bertelli created a music video featuring Eminem, Pink Floyd, Robbie Williams, Amy Lee, Lindsay Stirling, Sebastian Yatra and Zooey Deschanel’s band She & Him. After many years of working on paper-based animation (including projects) and more than a decade specializing in paper-based animation, he felt it was time to stop producing only for others and doing commissioned projects and start making what he calls “something deeply personal”.
“Jikokuki” definitely fits into that category. The 71-minute film The Space-Time Chronicle is Bertelli’s feature debut (he has previously directed animated feature films on paper, but calls it a test or gateway project) is a visual journey through the mind of Fred, who is lost in limbo, guided by a cat who acts as his conscience.
The surreal, dream-like story of a man’s inner journey between reality and dream space led Annecy’s artistic director Marcel Jean to praise its “surrealist style and DIY approach reminiscent of Michel Gondry and his dream films.” This stop-motion papercraft using bricolage is, according to Jean, “a true technical masterpiece.”
The film, which was joined by Paris-based Urban Sales ahead of Annecy, is one of the hottest titles in this year’s festival’s Contrechamps selection. Ahead of the event, Variety spoke with Bertelli about the creation of this unusual feature.
How did you approach this feature-length project, which was animated entirely in stop-motion?
Stop motion itself has always been a part of me, ever since my first short film “Rapid Eyes Movements” in 1999. But the world of paper, and building entire paper sets and environments, really started for me around 2014.
I’ve always loved independent films from the 1990s and early 2000s, Gaspar Noe’s movies like Donnie Darko, Clerks, Memento, and Enter the Void, as well as Michel Gondry’s music videos, and I’ve always been drawn to psychology, author-driven storytelling, and movies that get you directly into the minds of the characters.
The origin of “Space-Time Chronicles” actually comes from the Camel Power Club music video that I directed. The central image is of an airliner, which, like life itself, experiences highs, lows, and turbulence. This concept also led to my interest in investigations, especially documentary series focused on plane crashes and aviation mysteries.
From that music video, the project evolved, first into a short film and then gradually into a full-length feature, although initially there was still no complete script. Much of the story took shape gradually during production.
Can you tell us more about the paper-based method you chose to create this feature? How does this connect to your story?
When I started working on The Space-Time Chronicles, one of the first questions I asked myself was, “Why paper?” My usual visual style wasn’t enough. Even for those who don’t know my background, this movie had to justify this choice on its own.
Over time, I realized that the paper naturally reflected the instability of the characters and the world around them. It could bend, tear, burn, and crumble so easily that its fragility itself became part of the storytelling.
At the same time, there is something immediate and essential about paper. Reduces images to simple shapes without letting realism dominate. This simplicity was important because the film deals with themes such as memory, identity, uncertainty, and the idea that life is always changing and impossible to fully control.
Even the atmosphere of the music follows this direction. The feeling of something suspended between the sky and the ground, intimate yet infinite, like a paper world that could disappear at any moment.
What challenges does this stop-motion paper-based animation represent?
The main problem was exactly the vulnerability I mentioned earlier. Because that vulnerability always creates technical limitations. Paper is not malleable like clay. Paper is hard and bends easily. Also, the movement is very unnatural, especially when dealing with three-dimensional objects.
Over time, we have developed various techniques to overcome these limitations. They often use sequences of models built one at a time to simulate movement, or use extreme slow-motion or approaches not strictly related to traditional stop-motion animation. At the end of the day, this film is also a combination of all my previous experience in video production.
Another complicating aspect was not only in the animation itself, but also in the construction of the sets. Many environments were large structures built as a single block, such as the interior of an airliner. To support these, we needed a strong internal framework and all the hidden technical systems behind it: stepper motors, robotics, LED wiring, and mechanical systems to support specific animation movements.
Riccardo Orlandi was a fundamental figure in this process. I met Ricardo when I was making my first amateur horror film in the early 2000s. We were completely self-taught, just like a lot of young people pretend to be actors and start making horror movies with their friends. I basically didn’t have any equipment other than my camera. Ricardo quickly became very important. I still remember how he used metal plates and skateboards to create handmade trolleys to create cinematic camera movements. We continued to cooperate and then founded our own production company, Seenfilm.
Stefano Bertelli (left), Riccardo Orlandi (right) and “Space-Time Chronicles” set
Credit: Stefano Bertelli
Since then, he has gained a huge amount of experience because we have always worked together and always had to deal with situations that we had never experienced before. He is my creative partner on this film, but our collaboration goes back much further than that, to the years we worked together on live-action sets.
In a sense, Riccardo represents the more analog side of the project, while I am more connected to the technical side: cameras, computers, and digital tools. But in reality, we help each other in everything. Even though there are only two of us, we are very collaborative.
Do you remember how long it took you to create this piece, how many sheets of paper you used, and how many firecrackers you set off to make it explode?
It took about four or five months to complete the film, although it wasn’t continuous as I was also working on music videos and other commissioned projects during that time.
To be honest, I couldn’t say exactly how much paper was used. At the moment, it is difficult to know how much, as we are continually and regularly ordering materials, but we would estimate that it will probably be in the thousands in 100×70 cm (39×27 inch) format.
When we decided to introduce extreme slow motion into the film, one of our first ideas had to do with explosions. It’s something so fast and violent that time suddenly stops.
But perhaps the most satisfying scene for me was the in-flight scene when the plane rolls over. Objects fly around the cabin, and light shining through the windows creates realistic shadows inside the cabin. In that moment, the movie feels almost real, even though everything is made entirely of paper. This slow-motion approach gave the film a more dramatic look.
How has this film interacted with audiences so far? What kind of feedback have you received?
There’s a story from the Brussels premiere that still makes me smile. I was sitting anonymously in the last row, exactly as I wanted. At the end of the screening, everyone came out of the theater with a little paper card to rate the movie on a scale of 1 to 10. There was a small table in a dimly lit corner near the exit where people stopped and filled out their cards. At one point, I noticed a man with a pen in his hand starting to write out his vote. I couldn’t resist. I slowly moved closer and closer until I was almost drawn to the little piece of paper. I finally checked my score. It was a 10 out of 10.
At that point I was standing very close, so the man inevitably turned to me with a quizzical look. I looked at him emotionally and simply said, “Thank you.” Then we both started laughing. That’s exactly why I don’t want people to know I’m in the theater. I want that kind of reaction. It’s spontaneous, instinctive, and unfiltered.
What does animation mean to you?
I’m not an anime fan in the strict sense of the word. I love film in a broad sense, including independent films and documentaries. The animated films that really stick in my mind are primarily author-driven films. Hayao Miyazaki, of course, but also “Bashir and the Waltz,” “Persepolis,” and “A Street Named Panic.” A film that uses animation not as a genre, but as a necessity, as the only way to express a certain idea.
I come from live action and music videos. At a certain point, I felt that my budget was so limited that I was no longer able to express my ideas properly. I’m not just talking about money, I’m talking about mental space. Some ideas are inherently expensive, and in the world of music videos, just achieving good visual quality on set already requires a medium to high budget. Much less take on something narratively ambitious.
So I decided to create my own paper world. A world where any idea can be developed as long as it respects internal rules. Animation gave me exactly that. It’s a freedom I never had in the real world.
