Miyu's "Animation in Conversation" debut: Anna Mantzaris and the Cartoon Physics duo on directing while making, and reference from real reactions

Miyu Distribution launched a new interview series, "Animation in Conversation," on its Bang Bang YouTube channel (2026-08-21) -- an unscripted, roughly 40-minute conversation between animation filmmakers rather than a Q&A. The debut pairs stop-motion director Anna Mantzaris (Please) with the married directing duo Ru Kuwahata and Max Porter (Cartoon Physics). Mantzaris described the double workload of building puppets herself while simultaneously overseeing shoots running in other countries -- Sweden, the Czech Republic (Prague) and France, for Please -- and the mental cost of the split: "I had to switch from the making brain... to, 'Which shot is this? Do I have to look at this? Is it approved?'" Kuwahata explained that Cartoon Physics drew on her young daughter's genuine, undirected reactions: she staged small scenarios with cardboard props and filmed the child's real responses, later using that footage as animation reference -- "the writing process was really a family business," as she put it, tracing the film's premise (a child's first encounter with mortality) back to her daughter discovering a dead bird. Porter added that adapting a familiar cartoon gag (a character walking through a wall) into stop motion meant "giving ourselves permission to dip into those old tropes... and see if we can do it in stop motion." Folded into the Wiki: Kuwahata's reference method becomes a new example on Performance reference for stop motion, and Mantzaris's account seeds a new concept on the dual director-maker role on a small international co-production.