Joining forces with documentary makers, Animal Monday (who we last worked with on their double-Grierson-award-winning ‘Here’s Johnny’), an hour-long film featuring our animation premiered on BBC Scotland and iPlayer nationwide at Christmas. ‘Wojtek – the Bear That Went To War’ chronicles the real life story of a Polish army who enlisted a mascot bear they’d become attached to into their regiment in order to prevent them having to leave him behind whilst on duty.
Using wartime Polish poster art as an initial starting point for the visual inspiration, we helped bring to life the hardest segments to reconstruct, which included the wartime deportation of young children and an imagined triumphant homecoming of the Bear hero that sadly was never able to happen. The finished documentary premiered to an audience of Wojtek’s closest human friends in December, flown over to London, and it was very exciting to meet the ladies whose deportation story we’d had the chance to recreate.
The whole film is honestly powerful stuff so worth seeing out at http://www.wojtekfilm.com but you can watch our two animated segments here!