Academy Award-Nominated Filmmaker Tomm Moore: Mythology, Storytelling and Animation

Tomm Moore has built his career as a storyteller by combining his love of folklore and ancient stories with animation. His film, The Secret of Kells was nominated for Best Animated Feature at the Academy Awards® in 2010 and the follow-up, Song of the Sea was nominated in 2015.

Tomm co-directed (with Ross Stewart) the “On Love” segment for The Prophet, an animated feature film produced by Salma Hayek, based on Kahlil Gibran’s best-selling book. Tomm received the Directors Guild of Ireland and America’s Finder’s Series Award in 2008 and European Director of the year at Cartoon Movie in 2009.

In the interview below, Pipeline Artist contributor John Bucher talks to Moore about their shared love of mythology and storytelling, as well as how he approached bringing his latest project, Wolfwalkers, which has also now been nominated for an Academy Award® for Best Animated Feature, to life.

Some highlights ...

"As I got older, I started to appreciate that we had something to say that's unique to the rest of the world."

"Animation is so close to the language of dreams, and the language of dreams is so close to the language of mythology."

"The basic thing we started with [in Wolfwalkers] is that the hunter would see the world through the eyes of their prey."

"Find someone who wants to go on the journey with you ... If you have a trusted wolf pack around you, it can help a lot."

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*Feature Image: Wolfwalkers / Apple TV