'It feels like a book came to life': Cork TV show in running for award

Tomi Ungerer was one of the world’s most celebrated children’s authors and artists.

Born in France, he settled in West Cork in the 1970s, where he lived for the remainder of his life.

Throughout his career, he received numerous accolades, including being appointed the first Ambassador for Childhood and Education by the Council of Europe.

Ungerer’s work continues to entertain children long after his passing in 2019.

Aria Ungerer serves as the custodian of her father’s work and is the producer of the animated children’s series Flix, produced by her animation company, Pictor Productions.

The series, which is shown on RTÉ and is directed by Cork animator Tom Gray, is based on a Tomi Ungerer children’s story about the only dog living in Cat Town.

The show has been nominated for Best Direction of an Animated TV Series at this year’s Irish Animation Awards, which take place in Galway on Saturday.

Ungerer says there were many reasons for choosing Flix as the first of her father’s stories to adapt for screen.

“It is such a crazy story. A cat goes to the hospital and gives birth to a puppy, Flix.

“It’s easy to tell some stories through the lens of animal characters; you are not constrained in the same way as you are telling stories about humans, so Flix seemed like an obvious choice.”

Ungerer says her father hadn’t written any children’s books for 25 years, and that Flix was the beginning of a new chapter of storytelling for him.

Ungerer’s father was born in France in 1931, experiencing life under German rule during World War II. She believes this experience inspired Flix’s story.

“He grew up in Alsace in France, which was annexed by the Germans during World War II. It meant that for the first part of his childhood, he was in a French school speaking French, and then, during World War II, he was suddenly in a German education system where they had to praise Hitler every hour.

“After the war, they became French again, but the French looked down on the people from Alsace; they were considered dirty Germans.

“Tomi saw how nuanced identity is and how it can be used against you. It is a key thing in all of his work.”

Ungerer says her father’s experience led him to strongly believe that your thinking is free, no matter what other people might tell you about yourself.

Growing up in West Cork, she says her parents encouraged her and her siblings to be individuals and to embrace their French DNA, but sometimes, she wanted to fit in.

“I had this conflict. I wanted to conform, be like everybody else, have a normal name like Mary and eat the same meals as other kids from Cork.

“On the other hand, I wanted to be myself. That’s very relatable to lots of kids.

“You don’t have to be an immigrant or a first-generation person. There are many reasons why kids feel like they don’t fit in and don’t know how to express that.”

Aria says that the cartoon shares her parents’ drive to support individuality.

“We were very fortunate. We had parents who were very encouraging of wildness and craziness and being a bit out there, and that is what the cartoon does.

“It encourages kids to be who they are, no matter their circumstances.”

Ungerer believes that living by the sea in West Cork influenced her father’s creativity, which she can relate to.

“There is something about being on the edge of a country and looking out into the limitless sea that makes you a little bit more philosophical.

“I live in East Cork now, next to the sea, and there is something about watching the weather coming in. You see the passing of time.

“Tapping into the sea and the sky will bring out the creativity in anyone.”

Ungerer says she would like to see more support for the animation industry in Cork.

“I think it’s important that we support talent so that people shouldn’t feel that they have to move to Dublin, for instance, to work in animation.

“As far as I know, I run the only animation production studio in Cork that has produced a show. I wish there were more.

“We are lacking support and infrastructure in Cork, and we have enough talented people in Cork to warrant investment.”

Although her father did not live to see the animation brought to life, Ungerer knows he would have been happy with the show.

“He worked with us on the development, creating new characters, redesigning the world, and on some very early iterations of the character, but unfortunately, we didn’t go into production until 2021, so he didn’t get to see how it turned out.

“But all those big design decisions that we made, we referred back to the guidance that we received and feedback we received from him at the beginning.

“I have no doubt he’d be delighted with the result. It really does feel and look like a book come to life.”

Although Ungerer works with her father’s work daily, she says Flix means a little bit more.

“I run his artistic estate, and I am always working with his material, but the Flix project is particularly important to me because it is something we developed together.

“I remember the first time we got funding for Flix or any of those little milestones. I wished he was here to share that with me, but it is definitely something where I feel joint pride with him in a way that feels more special than my other work.”

The Irish Animation Awards will be held in Galway on Saturday, May 24.