Reza Memari • Director of The Last Whale Singer

German-Iranian director Reza Memari is part of the Face to Face promotional campaign organised by German Films. He is presently working on his new feature-length animated film, The Last Whale Singer. We talked to him about his plans and his inspiration.

Cineuropa: Your first big animated flick, Richard the Stork [+], premiered in 2017. You are now working on your next feature-length animation. That’s quite a long period between films; was it difficult to find the funding?
Reza Memari: Animation per se, as a process, is super long. It's all about patience: the actual film production takes two years, while developing the movie and funding it can take more than seven years. Financing is always hard here in Europe, if you are making an independent film. Of course, if you have a streamer supporting you, that's different. In Europe, there is a maximum limit up to which we…