Our Picks: Däwit by Fabian&Fred

Däwit by David Jansen / Fabian&Fred

A wolf child, an angel, a cat.

The film animated in the tradition of wood cut technique, tells the story of an abandoned child, who grows up with wolfs after his mother rescued him from his violent father. After an enigmatic journey full of privations and in quest for identity he finds his peace in forgiveness.

Director’s Notes

In the development of the story I had one picture in mind – a small island where one family lives, surround by the rough sea. A place that combines all factors where the smallest possible society (a family) has to face the elementary challenges of being alone and to deal with the rough outside world. On the first glance the nature is an idyll but can also be, like the nature of human beings, full of violence.

The wilderness for me is a place of youth where Daewit finds his new family. At the lunatic asylum he has to face the standards of how to be in a society. In the city Daewit feels lonely and gets lost in longings and he has to die a painful death, to be able to start the journey on the search for his own identity. He will not find what he expected but he finds inner peace in forgiveness.

Daewit was animated in 12,5p/sec. The workflow was „straight ahead“. We started with the fist frame of a scene and go further frame by frame, till the scene was done. The style of Daewit is based on the old wood cut pictures, especially influencing was the Belgian artist Frans Masereel. White and black illustrates for me a world of all or nothing. But at that point we are again in the topic of forgiveness, which in terms of colors is a gray tone…