Swiss animation artist and director Antonin Niclass<\/strong> is one of the future indie talents to watch. He came to the forefront with the 2021 stop-motion ‘Do Not Feed the Pigeons’, a NFTS film and cardboard story in a coach full of strangers. The film granted him a number of festival presences and awards, including the BAFTA award for Best Animation Short. His subsequent presence was as an animator in the acclaimed short film ‘Canard’ by Elie Chapuis<\/strong> and in the Annecy-premiered stop-motion feature ‘Sauvages’ by the Zucchini Swiss director Claude Barras.<\/a> He also took part in a number of residences, like Cin\u00e9math\u00e8que Qu\u00e9b\u00e9coise and Animation Sans Fronti\u00e8res<\/strong>, and had his first VR experience with ‘Midnight Story’, an adaptation of his ‘Pigeons’ film, narrated by none other than Miriam Margolyes<\/strong>. He is now part of the programme Swiss Focus: Future Minds – Talents to Watch <\/strong>at the 2025 Stuttgart International Festival of Animated Film <\/a>(ITFS, 6-11 May 2025), in which Switzerland is the focus country (check the trailer with the participants<\/a>).<\/p>\n But Niclass started with live-action filmmaking studies in Belgium (Institut des Arts de Diffusion\u2014IAD in Louvain-La-Neuve), where he studied fiction, TV documentary, and radio\u2014but not animation. Yet his passion for animation started early.<\/p>\n “I first got hooked on animation as a kid, playing with the Spielberg Lego MovieMaker set with a neighbour”, Antonin Niclass tells Zippy Frames (his first stop-motion experience was seeing the 90s Swiss-produced ‘Pingu’ animation series on his TV). “It felt magical to bring an audience – our parents and friends – into our little films”. Lausanne-based Niclass found it natural to explore the world, being most observant of details of human behavior and telling stories. His film studies in Belgium were supplemented by self-made stop-motion skits in the basement with his flatmates for Swiss TV (Tataki). In turn, these skits proved instrumental when he applied to the famous NFTS to study animation.<\/p>\n “At the NFTS, we spent a year experimenting with short narratives – anywhere from two-day projects to month-long ones – before forming a team based on af finities developed during those exercises”, he elaborates. “We started writing the film in winter and delivered it a year later. We spent days and nights at school working on it – during COVID lockdowns – which made it an intense but unforgettable experience”.<\/p>\n The experience resulted in the 9-minute film ‘Do Not Feed the Pigeons’, a stop-motion film with cutouts and a painted canvas in a 3D set made out of wood and cardboard.<\/p>\n “The whole process started with a full night at Victoria Coach Station with the screenwriter, doing field research in January”, Niclass tells Zippy Frames. “That experience stayed with us. We observed a lot of people and emotions that night – sadness, fatigue, stillness – but also a quiet kind of beauty hidden beneath the grime and rush. It was about noticing what only appears if you take the time to pause.<\/p>\n The shooting period (the UK’s first lockdown) coincided with and resonated with the film’s theme of isolation, separation, longing, and, in Niclass’s words, “quiet moments of connection.” Yet the 2D flat puppets had their own challenges.<\/p>\n Do Not Feed the Pigeons puppets<\/em><\/p>\n Originally, we thought about drawing characters on found bus tickets or trash from the station. That idea evolved into using cut-out flat characters, which conveyed a sense of fragility and tactility. Being a stop-motion animator, I was just discovering 2D animation during my time at NFTS. I didn\u2019t have much experience with drawing\u2014my style was pretty rough, or \u201cshabby chic,\u201d you could say\u2014but it was exciting to blend the flatness of 2D with the physicality of stop-motion sets.<\/p>\n The production itself had a sustainable vibe. “We created the entire station with the idea that everything could be made from found materials. Our production designer used recycled plastics for parts of the set. The characters were made from aluminum foil covered with canvas to give them texture and life. One of the biggest challenges was figuring out how 2D puppets could behave in a 3D space. That constant problem-solving kept the creativity alive until the very end. Story-wise, the challenge was to bring a narrative in a piece that was mostly contemplative. And not to focus on a character but rather a disparate community that experiences something as a group.”<\/p>\n \n ![](\"https:\/\/www.zippyframes.com\/interviews\/local-images:\/stories\/switzerland\/do-not-feed-the-pigeons-backstage.jpg\")
<\/p>\nWatch ‘Do Not Feed the Pigeons’<\/em><\/h4>\n