Tatia Rosenthal is an Israeli filmmaker/animator who directed $9.99, which was shown at this year’s Citizen Jane Film Festival.
She has also worked as an after effects animator on children’s shows such as Blue’s Clues.
She does a lot of independent work and currently teaches at the Visual Arts school in New York.
In high school Tatia was interested in acting and adapting plays, and she realized that film touched on all of that.
She went into the Israeli army, as is required of all Israeli citizens, and then into medical school, before getting involved in film.
Etgar Keret is an Israeli author, whose stories helped inspire Tatia’s work.
Tatia made a short film called Crazy Glue using one of his stories. She later worked with him on the writing of the script for $9.99
It was a ten year process to get $9.99 made, and Tatia used one of Etgar’s stories for a short called A Buck’s Worth as a financing piece. This story was also used as the opening for $9.99. Financing was difficult to find, which is part of why it took ten years to make, but eventually they found financing in Australia, and filmed a lot of it there.
She felt that the message of the film was, “Life doesn’t deliver one overarching satisfaction, it’s about the moments, and connecting with people.”
They did post production for $9.99 in Israel. Tatia said one of the most challenging aspects of the project was simply to work with in the budget, as it was a very small budget for a stop motion film, and it was an enormous strain. She said, “You have to be absolutely in love with the project, or it won’t be worth it.”
The part she loved most about this film was Albert and the Angel, because it was, “So beautiful with the animation and the puppets.”
Tatia likes her line of work because she loves the intellectual process.
She loves literature and film and “having the privilege of using her brain to make something and be proud of it.”
She wants to direct live action some day, she sees it as sort of a way of proving yourself as a director, but she needs to find the right script for it.
One of her favorite and most inspirational films that she has seen is Magnolia, but likes anything from Paul Thomas Anderson. She believes he is one of the more extreme directors of today. He has also done films like Boogie Nights and Punch Drunk Love.
Tatia also thinks Henry Selick, the director of The Nightmare Before Christmas, and Coraline, pushed stop motion to a new level.
She also loves an Australian film called The Proposition and watched it a few times in a row.
Tatia wants to take a break from working with Etgar, though she still loves his work.
She is currently working on a new project. She wants to adapt a book and is looking into getting the rights for it, but can’t say the title for now.
I had fun interviewing her, she was very sweet and seems like a good person to get to know.
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