Aurel pays tribute to the Spanish artist "Josep" Bartoli

"Josep" by Aurel -

• “Josep” looks back on the extraordinary life of an anti-Franco cartoonist.

• A designer himself, director Aurel has mixed his graphic style with that of his hero.

• This animated film is supported by the Cannes and Annecy festivals.

What a fascinating life that of Josep Bartoli (1910-1995)!

This is the story of this committed artist that Aurel tells in

, an animated film dubbed by the Cannes festival and supported by the Annecy festival.

Aurel, cartoonist (for

and

) and comic strip, here signs his first feature film to which Sergi López, Bruno Solo, Gérard Hernandez and David Marsai have lent their voice.

From the French camps in which he was parked as a Spanish Republican in 1939 to his rebirth in Mexico City and then in New York,

the viewer on a series of painful or flamboyant adventures inspired by the life of this anti-Franco designer.

“I discovered the work of Josep Bartoli thanks to a book by his nephew Georges, explains Aurel to

.

I wanted to bring movement and sound to its story.

"

JOSEP by Aurel, coup de ❤️de Vocable Espagnol, at the cinema on September 30th. Cinema tickets to be won!

https://t.co/Fgcf8zchPf #josepbartoli #laretirada @SophieDulacDist pic.twitter.com/nJBxwUuh2b

- Vocable Education (@VocableEduc) September 25, 2020

A designer himself, Aurel mixed his style with that of Bartoli for

.

"I wanted to avoid tone on tone," he says.

I relied on the graphic evolutions of Bartoli throughout his life to give their identity to each part of the film.

The ominous grayness of the internment contrasts with the vivid colors of Mexico City where Bartoli became Frida Kahlo's lover.

Screenwriter Jean-Louis Milesi obviously brought fictional touches such as the friendship that unites the hero to a French gendarme, but he kept this connection as an important element in Bartoli's biography.

“It's so amazing that we felt we had to put it on.

It seemed to us to sum up in a single element the romanticism of its existence, ”insists Aurel.

Imagination stronger than representation

The film pays an intense tribute to Josep Bartoli, to his talent, but also to his strength of resistance.

“I was inspired by what he gave us in terms of information and about the time, then I digested and recreated it in my own way,” says Aurel.

Fiction reveals a little-known piece of history at the same time as the work of a brilliant artist.

Drawing is a good way to stay away from the violence while revealing the horror offscreen.

"The spectator is free to project what he wants and his imagination is often worse than what we could have shown," says the director.

A particularly harsh execution sequence testifies to the power of the encounter between the director and the subject of his film.

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Meet Aurel, director of the excellent Josep, a powerful animated film not to be missed!

@ sophie.dulac @festivaldecannes @annecyfestival

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Drawing above all

Two years of production, including one year of production involving a hundred people, were necessary to give birth to the film.

"

is a tribute to pure and hard drawing as a communication and artistic medium", insists Aurel.

He admits to having limited the animation of certain passages to highlight the power of the line, in particular during the part on the camps.

His pride is to have received reactions from several survivors after the screening of the film.

“They say they are very moved to review their experience in a drawn form because they can project their experiences and feelings into the film.

»

gave Aurel a taste for cinema.

He is already thinking of a new project, still secret.

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• Cannes film festival

• Annecy festival

• Animation Film

• Cinema