T-Port Blog

Szymon Ruczyński’s animated film THERE ARE PEOPLE IN THE FOREST has seen its share of festival success around the world, and made the T-Port Lighthouse Selections in 2023. But as the film has travelled, the humanitarian crisis it depicts continues on the border between Belarus and Poland. 

We chatted to the animator about what compelled him to create this work, how he believes artists can step up to crises, and what’s next for his flourishing career. 

Professional Subscribers can watch THERE ARE PEOPLE IN THE FOREST on T-Port now, courtesy of our partners at the Polish National Film School at Lodz

Why did you choose the subject of THERE ARE PEOPLE IN THE FOREST? What made you want to focus on telling the stories of refugees at the Polish / Belarusian border? 

This is a very personal film for me. I come from a village near the border with Belarus, on the Polish side. In 2021, the Belarusian dictatorship opened a new migration route into the EU across our border. In response, the Polish government created a closed-off zone near the border. 

As a resident, I witnessed what was happening inside. People seeking refuge in the EU were illegally pushed back across the border when caught by our border guards or soldiers. They spent weeks wandering the forest, brutally forced by state agencies on both sides to move back and forth between the two countries. I saw them hiding in the forest scared, hungry, and cold.

While participating in secretly providing these people with basic humanitarian aid I felt it was also my responsibility as an artist to document what I had witnessed. I wanted to use my art to transform what I’ve seen into a universally understandable form and share it with people unaware or misinformed about the crisis. This became especially urgent as the mainstream media quickly lost interest in objectively reporting on the issue. Even though we are now in the fourth year of the crisis, the situation has remained largely the same.

Through this animated documentary, I aim to remind audiences that the tragedy of refugees at the outer borders of the European Union is not a thing of the past. My animation addresses not only a local issue but a broader, universal subject. I hope it prompts viewers to ask themselves what the proper response to people in need should be, no matter the circumstances.

Could you talk a little about the animation techniques you used for THERE ARE PEOPLE IN THE FOREST – what was the process like of making your film? 

The film is a mixture of traditional frame-by-frame drawn animation and digital compositing. All the elements visible on the screen were drawn by hand with a pencil on paper. 

The drawings were very small, with some only a couple of millimeters in size, as I wanted them to be imperfect, and prone to small errors generated when copying. In-between frames and additional frames intended for looping were created by retracing the drawings over a lightbox. Afterward, all animated assets were photographed and composited together digitally, with some additional cut-out-style movement added to them in After Effects. 

As part of the chosen style, I decided not to do the standard clean-up of the animation and to allow the lines to overlap freely, without filling in the areas inside.

You have a very strong visual style for the movie, how did you develop it? Is it a style you intend to stick with? 

The idea for this style came from a series of very short “animated postcards” I created in the first months of the crisis. They were not intended for publication but rather were a crude recording of images I’ve seen. As such, they were extremely simple stylistically, very naïve, almost childlike. 

When considering how to tell the story in the form of the short film I decided that this is the most honest way to present this complex situation. I opted to get rid of all the unnecessary decorative elements, which would only distract the audience from the core of the story. The childish style also contrasted strongly with the seriousness of the depicted situation. 

Counter-intuitively I wanted to cut off my emotions and interpretations from the film as much as possible, leaving the viewers free to interpret the depicted events by themselves. 

Because the film was created as a quick documentary response to ongoing events I decided to leave the picture raw, without removing the imperfections of the process.

I believe that each story has its own style that fits it best. My previous films were all in very different styles and techniques. I like to experiment and surprise viewers with the chosen artistic means. That said, if I get to tell another story for which this particular style could be beneficial, I’ll happily go back to it and try to develop it further.

What have you gained from the film school experience? 

Film school for me was above all a great opportunity to get inspired by a lot of talented people studying with me. It was also a good space to work on my own ideas without worrying too much about outside pressure. I’m leaving it with a lot of great memories, experiences, and contacts, with whom I hope to work in the future. 

I got my first commercial jobs through people that I met at school, so for sure it is a great platform for starting a professional life.

Is there anything you have found missing from the film school experience as you move into the film industry? 

I am still a student and will be submitting my diploma work in the near future, so I don’t feel it would be appropriate to make this kind of summary now. One thing I wish we, animation students, would do more often, is collaborate with students from other specialties within our school and work in larger teams, rather than handling almost every aspect of a film on our own. However, I know this is already changing, and students who joined the school after me are having a much different experience.

How has the process of distributing the film been for you so far? What have you learned?

I was extremely lucky to have my film selected for representation by the Krakow Film Foundation. They took care of sending and promoting the film to foreign film festivals. Without their professional help, I’m sure I wouldn’t be able to reach such a wide audience in so many countries. 

Proper festival distribution is a great deal of work that also needs a very particular set of skills, knowledge, lots of energy, and time. And of course money. What also helped on multiple occasions was the support of the Film School, which recommended my film to a lot of events. 

The film was selected for promotional catalogues and film markets, which surely also had its share in its successful run. This small student film had been selected to dozens of festivals all around the world and won awards, including at two Academy Award qualifying festivals. It received a lot of attention and new opportunities are still arising. 

It seems that the film will have a life of its own and will be available to viewers even after it goes out of the festival circuit.

I understood that it is hard to predict exactly how the festival will go and where it will lead, as the selections and jury verdicts are often surprising. A failure to get into one festival doesn’t mean it won’t be a great success somewhere else. But success can lead to other great opportunities. If the film is visible, it can lead to other ways of distribution outside of the festival circuit, like TV or streaming services.

I decided to accompany my film personally to as many festivals as possible. It is a great and rewarding way of promoting a film and, as it sometimes turns out, can influence how the film is being treated. I was lucky to have received public funding from the Adam Mickiewicz Institute for two of my furthest trips abroad to promote the film. It surely is a big and time-consuming responsibility of the filmmaker to promote the film properly in person, through social media, and in contact with journalists, but it can pay off.

What are your plans for the future? What comes next? 

I’m finishing my diploma film and hope to graduate soon. After I am done I want to apply for funding for my debut film, and this time work with a bigger team. The film will be completely different from what I have presented before. I aim for the seldom-used technique of pixilation. I won’t reveal too much about the contents of the film yet, as I am still in the early stages of development. In the meantime, I intend to continue working commercially as a VFX artist. 

In the future, I plan to look for projects that touch upon important subjects and comment on our reality. I believe in the power that art has in shaping our perception of the world and I would like to use it to support causes that are important to me.

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