'My Life As A Courgette' Director Talks Two New Projects

My Life As A Courgette (aka My Life As A Zucchini) is one of the best regarded animated features of 2016. The stop-motion movie picked up not only an Oscar nomination but numerous other nominations and 19 awards (including two Cesars, A European Film Award and the Swiss Film Prize). Not bad going for a first-time feature director.

Claude Barras has been talking to Screen International and has revealed that he has two follow-up films in the works, Both films are also to be stop-motion and aimed at children. Although, considering the dark themes we saw in Courgette, what Barras considers for children and what mainstream English-speaking audiences consider suitable for children may not exactly match up.


The first film is about deforestation and will be set in the jungles of Borneo. It will star a young girl and an orangutan. Of the two projects, Barras describes this as the more mainstream.

The second concept is based upon the greek myth of Oedipus (you know- the fellow who did unmentionable things to his parents). If that doesn't sound too family friendly, the director is currently talking to child psychologists to find out the right age to pitch it to.

Barras said "This will be very low budget. The concept art currently mixes stop motion with emoticons for facial expression and masks for the character’s heads.". This project is said to be in the early concept art stage- the first film is presumably slightly further along.

We're intrigued to find out more about both of these projects as soon as possible. Barras is definitely one of the stand-out talents working in animation today, so you can be sure we'll be keeping an eye on anything he works on.