Ana Mouyis is an animator, illustrator, filmmaker and educator based in Louisiana, US. In 2020, animateddocumentary.com’s Alys Scott Hawkins interviewed Ana about her film ‘Cambia Tutto’ which takes the viewer through the small Italian village of Canieza and emphasises how the town has changed over time. ‘Cambia Tutto’ was screened at multiple film festivals in Europe, the US and Brazil, and won Fisheye Film Festival’s 2021 Audience Award for best short documentary, and The Americas Film Festivals 2020 award for best experimental short.
Read Alys’s interview with Ana Mouyis:
How did the film come about?
The film was created as part of a residency opportunity in Canieza, Italy – musician Fox Schwach and I applied as a collaborative. The residency asked for work that connected to the location; a small village in Northern Italy. In our proposal we pitched the idea of creating a short film that would act as a portrait of the town, I would direct the animation and Fox would create a score. When we arrived we were so struck by the scenery of it all and wanted to make a contemplative piece that would highlight the beauty in the details of this small town.
Can you tell us about the motivation for / meaning of the film?
A lot of it had to do with the circumstances – we wanted to make a film about this small village but we had never been there so part of the process was getting there and immersing ourselves in the environment. For this reason we decided to work with replacement animation and hyperlapse as that would require us to explore and spend hours walking around photographing the surrounding area. One thing that became clear to us conceptually as we worked on this piece was that we were interested in building a portrait of this town through small/often-overlooked details. Photography (rather than video footage) allowed us to zero in on all these tiny details. For example, taking hundreds of pictures of different flowers from all over the village, we can put them together into a longer mesmerizing sequence, which would be different than just filming some flowers swaying in the breeze. In a general sense, both Fox and I, in our work, are interested in the sort of life and vibrancy that come from imperfections of hand-made/manual processes. Embracing some of the shaky/jittery processes of this kind of animation appealed to us for this project, so the viewer could get a feel for the human element that went into making it.
One aspect that really helped to inform the shape of the final film was the interview with Wilma Andrighetto, the mother of Paola De Martin, who is one of the residency organizers (and owners of the house we stayed in). Wilma has lived in that town her whole life. Her view on how the town has evolved over the years became a central conceptual element to how we put the film together. It was important to us to have some local perspective to keep it from just being a kind of travelogue
Where will it be screened or distributed?
We initially released it on Vimeo because of the pandemic, especially with how badly it was affecting Italy. With everyone in lockdown we felt it was a good time to put it online and share it freely, rather than only showing it at film festivals or galleries as we had originally planned. It’s been gratifying to share it with our friends and family and broader networks and hear that it’s helped people’s cabin fever in some small way. More recently it has screened at a number of film festivals and online showcases in Europe and the US.
What are you working on next?
This summer I will be returning to Cyprus, where I grew up and will be an artist in residence at Animafest Cyprus animation film festival. During the residency I will work on the production of an experimental documentary animation about the culture of Cyprus. By highlighting the commonalities between the customs and traditions of its divided peoples I hope to foster a greater understanding and empathy between the segregated communities in the North and South of the island. Fox and I will collaborate again on this project with him assisting me with audio recordings and sound design as well as composing an original score.
Watch the full film below:
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