5Q's w/Piret Sigus Silja Saarepuu "The Turnip" Director, Writer

QUESTION#1: Can you describe your film in one sentence?

Our film shows what is going on under the ground while people are growing vegetables

QUESTION#2: What would you like the BSFF audience to know about your film that they wouldn't consider from it's title?

It is based on an old folktale which has been told for ages by the peasants point of view. The film shows the over-exploited story from underground angle - showing what really happened while peasants were engaged in the cultivation of vegetables. Even in case you have never heard the old story, it doesn't matter, most probably you have eaten some vegetables and now you can have a glimpse under the ground to see what is going on while growing vegetables. And it is also a story about property, collaboration and betrayal.

All the decoration details are embroidered. The visual of the film is split horizontally into two worlds - on the underground "real world" we used dark cross-stitched background; the on-ground "other worlds" embroideries are contour-stitched.

QUESTION#3: Can you tell us about yourself and your filmmaking career?

Piret is is a self taught animation professional - never studied animation but Graduated Estonian Academy of Arts with independent animation "Curious Ox Sale". She was very found of animation since beginning, and started to discover the different animation techniques. In some point she just walked to Estonian Puppetfilm (Nukufilm) studio and asked work from there - and worked there for years at first as directors assistant, later as puppet maker. She came very found of cut-out technique. And started to make by herself cut-out animations.

And founded independent cut-out animation studio Animailm.

Silja is freelance artist working on field of interdisciplinary arts (video, installation, photo) creating and using stories of little people living on Earth and rolling stones on fields of different realities. So no wonder that in some point the "interdisciplinarity" included also animation.

Piret has invited Silja to be artist for an animation ordered by Childrens Museum;

and Silja has invited Piret to animate two video art projects.

The Turnip is the vegetable that brought us to work together under the ground.

QUESTION#4: What have you learned in the process of making your film?

That it is really comfortable to spend whole summer shilly underground studio while outside is hot as in sauna. of course - in while we had to climb up to warm up the toes in sunshine... It was also kind of covid survival project - instead of getting crazy while spending quarantine isolation we decided slightly to break the rules at get together - so our children could play together in yard and we could just dive to cellar studio to work with this project. If not making animation in the studio under the ground - how else we could have spend the time while lockdown?

QUESTION#5: What's does the future hold for this film and you?

Hopefully The Turnip will "grow up" and will have a tour around the world and start to earn its own money - so we could continue working with next project, keeping the same line. Yes - it is only 7minutes but at the same time a crazy example of "all made by hands" - starting from cut-out technique with huge amount of embroidered details made alive by stop motion

@animailm @Piret Sigus @Silja Saarepuu #animailm.film #siljasaarepuu #piretsigus