WATCH: Eva Cvijanović’s “Hedgehog’s Home” released online
This week sees the release of Eva Cvijanović‘s exquisite stop-motion adaptation of the classic Branko Ćopić tale Hedgehog’s Home. The multi-award-winning and Annie Award-nominated film, a co-production between the National Film Board of Canada and Bonobostudio, is now available to watch online in full following a run of official selections at some of the industry’s most prestigious festivals including Berlinale (Special Mention), Sundance, OIAF (Honorable Mention), Animafest Zagreb (Audience Award/Special Jury Award) and Annecy (Young Audience Award).
Produced by Jelena Popović of the NFB and Vanja Andrijević of Bonobostudio, the film interweaves Eva’s distinct directorial approach with exquisite animation by Ivana Bošnjak and Thomas Johnson, set to a compelling score by Croatian musician Darko Rundek.
A few years ago Jelena (Popović) and I talked about this childhood story that everyone in the Balkans knows – that was the beginning of Hedgehog’s Home.
The reason I chose stop-motion for this story is that it’s a pre-existing story and the illustrations for it are really gorgeous, very iconic. I wanted to force myself to not copy them, in a way. By doing it in stop motion that was already a step away from them. The choice of wool was that we wanted a bit of folklore, which is also in the original illustrations, we wanted this feeling of warmth and this slight folklore feel that goes with these types of old tales.
-Eva Cvijanović, director (full interview)
This timeless children’s poem about the significance of Home still shapes generations, impressing them at an early age with an intrinsic love for home. I am extremely proud that Eva’s interpretation of that feeling of cherishing and caring for one’s Home is reaching our ultimate goal—to transpose the universal values of this rare jewel into a wool-made animated film accessible to global audiences.
-Jelena Popović, producer (full interview)
To learn more about the making of the film you can watch the NFB’s making-of video above and listen to our director interview from episode 72 of the Skwigly Animation Podcast (stream below or direct download):