Two Balloons

Premier’s at the 30^th Anniversary of Foyle Film Festival 

On Saturday 25^th November

On Saturday 25^th November the magical stop-motion animated short film Two Balloons will premiere at the Foyle Film Festival. Two Balloons was four years in the making and it tells the story of two adventurous lemurs travelling the skies in their wondrous airships. One night they meet by chance and forge a bond which sees them through a calamity and cements their friendship.

Two Balloons was inspired by the music of Peter Broderick, a celebrated American composer who has collaborated with Philip Glass, Efterklang, Yann Tiersen, M. Ward and Dustin O’ Halloran amongst many others, as well as composing his own music and film scores. When director Mark Smith heard Broderick’s ‘More of a Composition’ he knew instantly that he wanted to work with him.

Originally the film was envisaged as a live action short and the plan was to build two real airships, but the production ran into problems when they couldn’t secure an aircraft hangar for the required length of time. So instead Mark decided to create the film as a stop-motion animated film despite the fact that he had no prior experience of stop-motion animation. As he says: ‘When I took the decision to pursue stop-motion as a medium to tell a story, I didn’t know what I didn’t know.’

One of the first questions asked when they made this decision was, ‘what form will the characters take?’ Mark took inspiration from Cyril Connolly’s The Unquiet Grave in which Connolly admires ring-tailed lemurs: ‘they held the secret of life to me; they were clues to an existence without thought, guilt or ugliness wherein all was grace, appetite and immediate sensation.’ And so the two curious adventurers in Two Balloons were born.

Mark and his crew spent sixteen months storyboarding and building a stage to encompass the sets of the half-scale lemur world. Only then did they begin to shoot which was a time-consuming process: shots which were only ten seconds long took two months to shoot. The result is the nine-minute long Two Balloons, an exceptional and heart-warming film which was a labour of love for all involved.

The Foyle Film Festival celebrates its 30^th anniversary this year and will mark this with more screenings than ever before. The crew from Two Balloons are thrilled that the film will receive its world premiere at such an important milestone event.

Book Tickets; Here