A chick from Hamburg

It has to be about Christmas and animals. Ceylan Beyoğlu didn't have any more specifications when she joined the "Christmas of the Animals" project in 2018.  "The project was actually entirely in France. But I was invited by the main distributor KMBO Distribution because we had already worked together on one of my previous projects," says the filmmaker from Hamburg. Five animated short stories by five different animation artists, set in different corners of the world. An ambitious project that took around five years from script to finished production - and which finally saw the light of day at the renowned Annecy Festival in 2024. 

But what exactly is "Weihnachten der Tiere" about? For example, there is the unusual alliance between a stork and a fox, who work together to save Father Christmas before his house at the North Pole sinks on a melting ice floe. In Japan, two brothers free a changeable magical creature from a hunting trap, which later returns the favour in a different form. Or the story of Ceylan Beyoğlu, in which a macho rooster catches a cold in winter and his work is taken over by a small, inconspicuous chick who outgrows herself in the course of the story. "I revised the script many times. Until the 20th version, the rooster and his perspective took centre stage. But somehow that didn't fit for a children's film. At some point, I started to tell everything from the perspective of the chick - and that felt much more right," says Beyoğlu about the working process. However, the core message remained the same the whole time: "Inspired by the elections in Turkey, I really wanted to show how important democracy is - and that you have to find your own way, regardless of what others think and say," Beyoğlu continues. 

Work on the story took place at Hamburg-based animation studio Fabian&Fred. This was a first for Ceylan Beyoğlu, who actually animates her films entirely on her own. In order to produce the film more quickly, she spent a summer working on the story together with a team of four permanent and several freelance animators.  She herself was responsible for the layouts, backgrounds and characters. Much of the work was initially done by hand and was later transferred to digital. "It was great to see how quickly things can happen in a team. Although it was also a big change for me not to have everything in my own hands," says Beyoğlu and laughs. The other four short films and the animations between the short films were made in France. Even though the Hamburg filmmaker sometimes wished she had been on site for a direct exchange, there were regular meetings via the Discord platform;