Cartoon Saloon director reveals grannies’ inspiration for Oscar-nominated film
THE writer and director of Kilkenny studio Cartoon Saloon’s short film Late Afternoon has revealed how her grannies provided the inspiration for the Oscar-nominated animation.
Both Louise Bagnall’s grandmothers died before she was an adult, but both left an indelible mark on the her life.
Late Afternoon, voiced by Irish actor Fionnula Flanagan, poignantly explores the inner life of an older woman suffering from dementia, and it was partly influenced by Louise’s curiosity about her own grandmothers.
Louise, who is getting ready to walk the famous red carpet in LA tomorrow week, told the Irish Examiner: “Obviously I saw them as my lovely sweet grannies who would slip me biscuits and all these kind of things, but they had lived full lives before they became grandparents — before they even became parents — so I think I became more curious about what was it like for them, growing up in the time that they did.”
She added: “I knew that one of my grandmothers, for instance, had worked as a civil servant and when she got married she had to give up her job and I think: ‘Wow, that’s not so far away from where I’m at, in terms of time – such a different life.’ And I would love to have been able to talk to them more about the realities of being a woman when they grew up and how did they feel.”