Dec 8, 2024

2025 Academy Awards Short Film Candidate: - Garden of Hearts" Director Olivier Hegyi

Cartoon Brew is putting the spotlight on an animated short film nominated for an Academy Award in 2025.

This article looks at the garden of Hearts of Hungarian film director Olivér Hegyi. This short film won the Best Animated Short at the Tallinn Black Knight Film Festival and earned it an Academy Award qualification.

A young aspiring painter with low self-esteem is his last round of interviews in the Painting department of the Academy of Fine Arts. While waiting for his interview, his inner demons appear to him in the form of garden pests and feast on his confidence. The film is produced by Hungarian turnip animation and Slovak artichoke.

Cartoon Brewing: This film pays tribute to the work of a naive painter. Olivér Hegyi: Yes, I was a big fan of rustic art and there was a time in my life when I was really looking for them. I love the passion of these artists, and the fact that they create these pictures only for the pleasure itself with the honesty and enthusiasm of children, and the institute rejects them, because they are somehow always out of the circle.

Even the title "Naive" is a bit unfair. It gives them an atmosphere that they don't know much in a way. I think they know even more because they have not lost their connection to their inner child. But institutions and industry don't really care about your inner child. This is also the case with some conservative art colleges. That's why I thought it might be a suitable situation for the plot.

What was it about this story or concept that forced you to connect with and direct the film-

Make an artist or something We can call it the voice of my ego and it has so many different faces. One is telling me that my job is not enough, the other says that I am better than anyone else. It seems to be the opposite of each other, but in my own opinion, both come from the same source. I wanted to make a film that depicted these voices in a funny way.

What did you learn through the experience of making this film, production-wise, filmmaking-wise, creative, or about the subject-

I ended this project unfortunately it did not happen, but it was such a relief that it takes so much time to dig a little deeper and see my automatic reactions in certain situations. I think it has become a bit easier to live with those anxieties and self-criticism. And I learned a lot about patience, too. I've also learned that whenever I feel stuck with something, it's better to jump to another part of the job. Forcing something will never lead to good.

Can you explain how you developed a visual approach to cinema - why did you settle for this style/technique-

From the beginning, I wanted to create something with the essence and taste of rustic painting. I thought the topic of the film fit well with this atmosphere of imperfection, but at that time I was obsessed with naive art anyway. So it was natural for me to go in that direction, and I also wanted to update my TVPaint skills a bit. So, if even the animated part is made with the same brush and technique as the background, then in this film, a good atmosphere meets imperfection in a sense.