Robot Dreams Filmmaker Pablo Berger on New Yorkers, the 21st Night of September, and What’s Next

By Tara Bennett  |  September 9, 2024 | 10:15am
Movies Features animation
Robot Dreams Filmmaker Pablo Berger on New Yorkers, the 21st Night of September, and What’s Next

If you tuned into the 96th Academy Awards last March and got a little confused by one particular nominee for Best Animated Feature—Robot Dreams—you’re not alone. While its category peers, Elemental, Nimona, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and the ultimate winner, Hayao Miyazaki and Toshio Suzuki’s The Boy and the Heron, all had theatrical or streaming releases, Robot Dreams made the minimum qualification window, making it mostly an unknown to U.S. audiences. 

While Neon did some work to remedy that with Robot Dream’s U.S. theatrical release on May 31, and now with its VOD and rental availability on September 10, this gem has been criminally underseen by the masses. A critical darling at international film festivals such as Cannes and Annecy, Robot Dreams also marks the animation debut of Spanish filmmaker Pablo Berger, who landed international acclaim with his films Blancanieves and Abracadabra. Like Blancanieves, Robot Dreams is also dialogue-free and adapts and expands upon writer/illustrator Sara Varon’s graphic novel of the same name. 

Set in 1980s New York City, the film charts the unconventional but deeply profound friendship between lonely Dog and their mail-order buddy, Robot. Told over the span of a year, this seemingly simple story weaves a profound tale about the injustices of circumstance, the bittersweet lessons of life’s curveballs and the vitality of connection. On the precipice of yet another expansion of its untapped audience, Paste Magazine spoke with Pablo Berger about the incredible journey of his film, why he was so well-suited to slip into the animation world and what he’s looking at next.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Paste Magazine: I sobbed like something was wrong with me by the end of Robot Dreams.

Pablo Berger: I sobbed when I read the graphic novel of Sara Varon, so much. And I thought, if I make a film, if I can make it right, I’m gonna make a lot of people sobbing too.

Prior to Robot Dreams, you worked in live-action. I know some directors extensively storyboard their films out before production, which is similar to boarding an animated film. Was that the case for you, or was this a completely new filmmaking experience?

Well, the thing is that I had an animation director inside of me without knowing that beforehand. I have storyboarded all my films. This is my fourth film. With my three live-action films before this one, some of them I spent a year [on boards]. I make the film in the storyboarding, so for me the storyboard is key. I felt very comfortable moving to the animation world.

Varon’s graphic novel is so charming, but it’s not feature script length. When you were considering the source material, was it clear what you wanted to expand upon in your adaptation?

I was very lucky with the author Sarah Varon. She gave me carte blanche. She had seen my film Blancanieves [Snow White] that was also dialogue-free. She read this script and loved it. She said, “I made the graphic novel, you make the film.” I had a responsibility with her, in the sense that I wanted to keep the soul and the themes. What moved me in the book, I wanted to be in the film too. But apart from that, I knew that I’d have to translate. I had to adapt to a new media with some big changes. 

A big change was the introduction of the characters. In the graphic novel, it starts when the box appears in the house of Dog. When I make a film, I have to introduce the city, like, Once Upon a Time in New York. I have introduced Dog as a lonely dog. I have to explain with actions that it was a lonely dog. And then, the end of the graphic novel is eight drawings; two pages. In the film, it’s eight minutes. I had to expand. But I want to believe that when people love the graphic novel, when they see the film, they love the film and they feel that it’s the same thing. I want them to see that they are two [similar] things, although they are very different.

Initially, you were supposed to make Robot Dreams with Irish studio Cartoon Saloon. But you ended up creating your own animation studio in Spain instead.

Yeah, it was definitely unique. I went to Cartoon Saloon in Ireland. We had meetings. I told my family, “We’re moving two years and a half to Ireland, to Kilkenny.” And suddenly, the pandemic. All the plans changed for everybody. We’re still very good friends with the people at Cartoon Saloon, but we had to create a studio in Spain, or we couldn’t make the film. We had to find an office, buy the computers and find animators all over Europe, then create a pipeline. And I wanted to work [at] the studio. I didn’t want the artists to work remotely so that was an additional difficulty. 

But once we got the team, it was so satisfying. I felt like a sergeant that is going on a suicide mission. [Laughs.] I said, “Guys, we are going to make Robot Dreams. I know it’s going to be difficult. But we are going to go to the Oscars! We are going to Japan!” And actually, I didn’t know that was going to happen. I have to motivate my team. But it really happened. We went to Cannes and the Oscars. So out of this difficulty—an impossible dream of making an animated film—it was five years of our work but it has such a happy ending. It was such a wonderful experience. And we got so close because we were working together. 

How did you start from scratch in a new medium?

I worked with an amazing art director, José Luis Ágreda, and with an amazing character designer, Daniel Fernandez Casas, who created this world. And then Benoît Féroumont, the animation director, worked on The Triplets of Belleville and with Tomm Moore on The Secret of Kells. So, I had my right hand and my left hand. And I also worked with people that used to work with me in live-action; Alfonso de Vilallonga made the music in all my films. The editor, Fernando Franco, and Yuko Harami, the music editor. It was a combination of new collaborators and old collaborators, so I had new people to play with. It was a great experience. Probably, I’ll repeat it again. I don’t know what it’s gonna be yet but I really enjoyed making this film. 

One of the elements that really popped out for me in the film was the anthropomorphizing of animals as the residents of New York City. They were so authentic to the personalities you see on the streets of New York. 

Another big change that I put to the graphic novel is that, for me, New York is the protagonist of the film. There is no New York without New Yorkers so we put a lot of emphasis on the characters in the background. They have to be unique and distinct, and they have to have a purpose. They couldn’t just be standing there, so we made New Yorkers. We had 1000s. We made books of New Yorkers. We had a team, like 10 people, working for years making New Yorkers non-stop because I didn’t want them to be just generic. I’m glad that you can feel that there was effort in creating these unique anthropomorphic characters.

Do you have a personal favorite that rose from the masses?

One of my favorite ones is the octopus bucket-drumming in the summer. That’s one of my all-time favorites. And there is a lot of homage to famous New Yorkers. If you watch the film carefully you can see Basquiat, or characters from Desperately Seeking Susan, or Diane Keaton of Annie Hall. But they’re not in your face. The character designer had so much fun creating all these New Yorkers.

The musical components in the movie are so vital because they convey so much emotion. With the needledrops, how hard was it for you to get Earth, Wind and Fire’s “September?” You’ve reframed that song forever. I’ll never hear that song the same way again.

Definitely. Robot Dreams, as you can say, is a musical. In a film that doesn’t have dialogue, the music is the voice of the characters. The jewel of the crown of the soundtrack is “September” by Earth, Wind and Fire. It was super difficult to get and super expensive to get the rights. But it was worth every penny because it’s the main theme of Robot and Dog. It appears in so many different ways. It appears in the piano version, in Robot’s whistle and it appears at the end. But even more than that, the lyrics, even if they were written like 50 years ago, the lyrics of the song are the theme of the film. The song starts, “Do you remember / the 21st night of September?” and the movie is about memories. And the 21st of September is when you move from summer to autumn. And if I want to get a little bit personal, the 21st night of September…my daughter was born. So in that first line of the lyrics, it means so much to me. It’s something very special. 

Now that you have some distance from the production, which scenes give you a lot of satisfaction?

There’s so many, but I love the introduction of the characters. I love the bird sequence. I love the Busby Berkeley, Wizard of Oz homage. I cannot be objective. The only reason I made this film is the end of the book and I’m very happy with the end. 

Because of how Robot Dreams was rolled out around the world, it’s the film that keeps going. How has it felt to go on this journey with the film, and has it inspired what stories you’ll tell next?

I just want to share the film with the widest possible audience. This roller coaster ride started a year ago, going to festivals and releasing the film all over the world. Now, I need to stop because I have to start working on my next film. But I really don’t know what is going to be next. I noticed that the DNA of all my films is very similar, or somewhat the same. There’s surprises. There’s an emotional ride. There’s humor. There’s music, and there’s a love story. Those five elements are in my four films. 

If somebody loves Robot Dreams and wants to see my next film, maybe they can watch my previous films until I make my next film. Let’s encourage them to watch Blancanieves, which is the sister film of Robot Dreams. It doesn’t have dialogue and it’s also very emotional. It’s a big melodrama. 

Tara Bennett is a Los Angeles-based writer covering film, television and pop culture for publications such as SFX Magazine, NBC Insider, SYFY Wire and more. She’s also written official books on Sons of Anarchy, Outlander, Fringe, The Story of Marvel Studios, Avatar: The Way of Water and the upcoming The Art of Ryan Meinerding. You can follow her on Twitter @TaraDBennett or Instagram @TaraDBen

 
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