How an Irish town became home for an animation powerhouse
The medieval town of Kilkenny in the southeast of Ireland is an unlikely home for a perennial Oscar contender. But there, among cathedral spires and castle parapets, the animation studio Cartoon Saloon has carved out a factory of hand-drawn artistry and local folklore that has persisted and flourished well beyond its creators’ expectations.
When Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart, directors of the enchanting Oscar-nominee “Wolfwalkers,” met growing up in Kilkenny — or even after they finished college and were setting out as animators — any success seemed sure to be found in typical entertainment epicenters like London, New York or Los Angeles.
Instead, they decided to stay in Kilkenny with the mission of making a single film. (It turned out to be 2009’s Oscarnominated “The Secret of Kells. ”) Their beginning staff of 12 worked out of an old orphanage. Twelves years later, there are nearly 400 working for Cartoon Saloon and their sister studio, Lighthouse Studios, in the heart of Kilkenny. The Lighthouse offices are housed in the secondary school Moore and Stewart once attended — a very sports-centric school, the directors recall.
“Our teenage selves would be glowing with pride,” Stewart says.
“Revenge of the nerds, I’ve always said,” adds Moore.
Formed when much of the animation world was following Pixar into computer generated animation, Cartoon Saloon is an underdog no more. “Wolfwalkers,” their most ambitious film — one that completes Moore’s trilogy of Irish folklore begun with “The Secret of Kells” and continued with 2014’s “Song of the Sea” — is expected to give Pixar’s “Soul” a run for its money at the Academy Awards later this month. “Wolfwalkers” marks the studio’s fifth Oscar nod.
The independent studio now has some very deep-pocketed backers in Apple, which released “Wolfwalkers” along with theatrical distributor GKIDS. Cartoon Saloon’s next film, an adaptation of “My Father’s Dragon” by Cartoon Saloon co-founder Nora Twomey, is for Netflix.
Founded in 1999 by Moore, Twomey and producer Paul Young, Cartoon Saloon has arrived at these heights by doing everything they weren’t supposed to — making uncompromising, authentically Irish, hand-drawn animation in Moore and Stewart’s hometown. No one is more surprised than they are about how it’s all turned out.
“People just told us we were mad,” says Moore, chuckling.
“Once you put down even the tiniest little root in a place, it’s very hard to move,” says Stewart. “There was talk along the way to have an L.A. studio or even a Dublin office.
Instead, it just grew and grew and grew.”
“Wolfwalkers” is a fitting pinnacle for Cartoon Saloon because it’s set right in Kilkenny. The film, streaming on Apple TV+ and recently brought back into theatres, is about Robyn, the daughter of a British soldier in 17th-century Ireland, who comes upon a “wolfwalker” — a human who can take the form of a wolf. That, naturally, comes from mythology, but the historical backdrop of “Wolfwalkers” is true; this is the time of Oliver Cromwell’s brutal invasion of Ireland.
Set between the woodcut-styled drawings of the British-controlled castle and incredibly lush, swirling forests, “Wolfwalkers” is — like Cartoon Saloon, itself — a tale of reclamation.
“I definitely felt these three movies that I directed and co-directed were about speaking back to the next generation stuff that I was afraid was going to be completely lost,”
Moore says by Zoom from Kilkenny, alongside Stewart.