Camberwell graduate to show at Cannes

by Jonny Hechema

Camberwell College of Arts alumni, Jens Blank, will have his animated short film appear in the official selection at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

The seven minute-long production called Cooked, will be one of thirteen films selected from over 1600 entries. Of these, the top three will be chosen and given awards on 21 May.

Cooked tells the story of an improbable love triangle that springs between a walrus, a seal and a lobster in an arctic sauna.

A recent graduate of the National Film and Television School, where Blank studied MA Animation and Direction, 28-year-old Blank created Cooked over a year from concept to completion.

Speaking to Arts London News, Blank described the film as uplifting: “I wanted something light,” he said.

“I knew that from even before I had a story that I didn’t want to make a long student film about death. Everyone within filmmaking’s probably guilty of making one of these films, which is fine really, but I kind of wanted something that was entertaining where people laugh.”

Why animals over humans?

For the production of Cooked, Blank and his team used Maya, a 3D animation program, to create the characters and backgrounds.

On the subject of why he chose to populate his film with animals over humans, Blank said “I always wanted to work with anthropomorphized animals because you can stereotype characters better without stuff like being offensive or pointing fingers.”

Blank said: Ssomething about communication between people and how people interact with each other. From that sort of sparked the idea of doing something in a sauna because people kind of have to interact because you’re in a very confined space together. That was something that really fascinated me.”

He has also discussed the possibilities for producing a long-form film based on Cooked, along with his desire to try going into creating commercials: “Ultimately I want to do directing,” he said. “Creating a world is what fascinates me.”