Pierre-Luc Granjon: Unflagging Creator of Imaginary Worlds

Pierre-Luc Granjon is a multidisciplinary artist and filmmaker whose work in animation and graphic design has been inspiring audiences for more than 25 years.

As a Lyon School of Applied Arts alumnus, Granjon initially had no intention of pursuing a career in cinema, let alone animated cinema, the medium he is best known for today. Determined to follow an artistic path, he dreamed of becoming a comic book artist or painter. When faced with conscription, he opted for conscientious objection instead, which led him to Folimage, a studio that in the mid-1980s accepted people opposed to military authority and training. There, he was instantly captivated by the studio and its production, especially the stop-motion animation technique. In 1988, he was hired as a character designer for Hilltop Hospital, a series based on the work of the same name by Nicholas Allan and directed by Pascal Le Nôtre. It is a parody of the series ER, aimed at children between the ages of 3 and 6, featuring an anthropomorphic medical team. The emergency department is headed by a dog: Dr Matthews.

The technique that had the most profound impact on his filmmaking is, beyond doubt, stop-motion animation. A large part of the films produced by Folimage have been created using this technique. However, his artistic career cannot be limited to a single technique. Pierre-Luc Granjon is a versatile artist who knows no boundaries in either printmaking or creative techniques. A common thread running through his entire creative body of work is his distinctive drawing style. Could we call it “the Granjon style”?

A Little Adventure (2002), The Other Kids’ Castle (2004), and The Child with No Mouth (2004) comprise the first, “silent” phase of his work, with characters that do not speak and narratives guided by the narrator’s voice. The White Wolf (2006) marks a turning point in his career, as dialogue between characters appears for the first time in the narrative of this rather cruel fairy-tale world. Two young brothers manage to tame a wolf, but in doing so learn about the harsh realities of the adult and animal worlds: killing, eating, being eaten—and killing again. The same can be said about The Big Beast (2013), a seemingly naive film with a strong undertone. One constantly expects a dangerous animal to appear, but it never does; it is a phantom threat mirroring our inner fears. The film appeals to our political and civic consciousness.

In addition to his solo projects, Granjon often collaborates with other screenwriters and directors. Together with Antoine Lanciaux, he created a series of four 26-minute stop-motion films, The Four Seasons of Leon, produced at the Folimage studio between 2008 and 2012. In 2020, with Jim Capobianco, he co-directed the feature film The Inventor, which was made and filmed at Foliascope Studios.

In 2015, Granjon tried his hand at two animation techniques that do not allow for corrections. Je ne fais que passer is a film created by animating the images engraved on a plasterboard as part of the project ‘36,000 ans plus tard’ (36,000 years later)—a collection of fifteen emotional films dedicated to the Chauvet cave. In this short film, Granjon pays tribute to cave painting, bringing to life for a fleeting moment the animal world of the Palaeolithic.

That same year, he attended a masterclass organised in Annecy by the CNC and run by Canadian filmmaker Michèle Lemieux. Three days to delve into the history and technique of the pinscreen, a rare and unique tool designed in the 1930s by Alexandre Alexeïeff and Claire Parker, which allows the animation of shadows and light using thousands of pins. In 2024, following these first experiments with the pinscreen, Granjon made The Night Boots, an animated short exploring his favourite themes: a child’s view of the adult world, the forest, night, strange encounters, and, when possible at all, friendship.

Animateka lets us enter his imaginary worlds, places that draw inspiration from childhood while laying bare the strangeness and cruelty of the world of adults. It is precisely this delicately balanced narrative approach that allows for a nuanced reading of his films, which Granjon says are not necessarily intended only for children.

– Jean Baptiste Garnero and Sophie Le Tétour