Tomm Moore on Song of the Sea and the importance of oral traditions

Ahead of the screening of Song of the Sea at the European Screenings, Tomm Moore talks to The National about the importance of preserving oral traditions through film.

‘I hope Song of the Sea is intelligent enough for children,’ says director Tomm Moore. ChinaFotoPress / ChinaFotoPress via Getty Images

Director Tomm Moore's obsession with Irish folklore continues with Song of the Sea (2014), the opening film of the European Film Screenings tonight. The animated feature is about a boy who discovers that his mute sister is a selkie – a mythical creature that resembles a seal – who must find her voice and rescue supernatural creatures from the spell of a Celtic goddess. His debut film, The Secret of Kells (2009), was also based on Irish mythology; both movies were nominated for Academy Awards. He also was among the 10 directors, including Emirati filmmaker Mohammed Saeed Harib, who worked on Salma Hayek's Kahlil Gibran-­inspired The Prophet (2014). Ahead of the screening, Moore talks to The National about the importance of preserving oral traditions through film.

How did you incorporate creatures from Irish folklore into Song of the Sea?

These folklore myths were stories that I learnt as a child growing up in Ireland and as an adult, they are still with me. Selkies are people who transform into seals. Usually the stories feature a woman who after seven years has to go back to the sea, so they’re about bereavement. But then I realised that folklore was a way of making sense of the world, in all sorts of ways. We made it so that all the main characters had another character reflected in the folklore. The witch is an echo of the grandmother character, for example.

Do you think these folklore stories are in danger of being lost over time?

It felt to me, when I had the idea for the film, that Irish folklore was becoming fossilised for tourists. I wanted to make them part of the everyday conversation of young people in Ireland. I thought an animated film might seem a more natural way to continue the tradition because it was an oral tradition and a lot of music was mixed in. Animation features song as well as words to pass the stories on. I want to keep them alive for my son’s generation.

How long did it take to make the film?

My son is 20 now. He was 10 when I had the idea, so he grew up while I was making the film. I started researching Irish folklore for Secret of Kells. I ended up learning more about it than I had room for in that film. So while travelling the world promoting The Secret of Kells, I was also developing Song of the Sea. I then had about two years of just myself, the art director and the writer working on scripts and design, then two years of full production. It was a long, old journey.

It feels like children’s films always have a happy ending. Is that a good thing?

I grew up on films such as Star Crystal [1986)] and Labyrinth [1986] – many children's movies were much darker back then. I resisted a certain happy ending in Song of the Sea; it's a hopeful ending. Life is complicated. Storytellers try to make sense of life and I think we need to have stories that reflect every aspect of life. At the end of the day, the film is really about loss so I felt we had to be truthful about it. I hope Song of the Sea is intelligent enough for children and simple enough for adults to enjoy.

What are you working on now?

Wolf Walkers – it is another Irish folklore film. The research I did for The Secret of Kells gave me the ideas to make three ­folklore-based movies in all. It's set in Ireland again, but during the 1600s.

You also worked on The Prophet last year. How was it working as part of a team?

The film worked out pretty well, considering that all the directors came from different countries. Each director worked with their own team individually and we were lucky to have Roger Allers [supervising director] and Salma Hayek [producer] keeping us all on the same wavelength. Before I saw the film in its final form at the Toronto film festival, I wasn’t sure how it was going to turn out. That was also the first time that I met the Emirati director Mohammed Saeed Harib, who was one of the other directors.

Why do you draw your films by hand?

With CGI animations you really see changes in films with the changes in the software, whereas with hand-drawn, there's this really timeless feel. Some films look great with CGI but for stories such as Song of the Sea, it just feels like a classic fairy tale. Our studio [Cartoon Saloon] has become known as a hand-drawing studio and it sets our work apart. But we're not anti-technology, we use computers a lot. We wouldn't be able to make movies such as The Prophet without the internet and technology.

• Song of the Sea screens at 8pm at World Trade Center Mall Abu Dhabi tonight, and at 8pm tomorrow at Ibn Battuta Mall in Dubai. European Film Screenings runs until October 31. For the schedule, visit www.thenational.ae/european-films