January 8th, 2025 
Jackson Murphy 
One of the 15 Best Animated Short Film finalists for the 97th Annual Academy Awards is Percebes. This hand-drawn short from directors Alexandra Ramires and Laura Goncalves is about the life of goose barnacles… and much more. (This Animation Scoop Interview was conducted as an Email Q&A and was edited for length and clarity.)
Q: How did you want to explore the multiple meanings of ‘percebes’?
A: The Percebes is a much-loved animal for the inhabitants of that region. It is also a visually very curious animal, with various stories and names associated with it. It means “understand” in Portuguese, which is the source of a lot of jokes around the animal, because it is hard to understand. It’s also the reason why Charles Darwin did not publish the Theory of Evolution earlier. He couldn’t explain it! For all these reasons, it became a very rich element when we were defining the story, when we were drawing, and when we were making a socio-economic portrait of that region of the Algarve. In a very intuitive way, the metaphors of this animal and the similarities with the Algarvians multiplied. As soon as we realized this, we embraced Percebe like the mute narrator.
Q: Like “The Garbage Man” [which Goncalves also directed], these feel like real conversations that we hear. How did you capture the dialogue of the characters?
A: Like “The Garbage Man”, the characters in “Percebes” are also real people. We had conversations with each one of them, discussing the several topics we wanted to explore on the film, to gather their opinions and testimonies. We recorded the voices of each person individually, except for the fishermen (they were together and the conversation was between them mostly). After understanding exactly the journey we wanted the spectator to experience (which places to go), we worked on the narrative of the voices, where each phrase fitted in the best way in our timeline, to be able to create that conversation. We wanted it to feel like a real conversation and the editing was a big part, but also knowing a little bit of the reality, and how people felt, was an important factor for making it work.
Q: What did you want to present when it comes to what people enjoy about life and living by the sea?
A: This film aims to be a complement to the relationship that the people have to the sea, as we also wanted to reflect on the fragilities of living in a coastal area nowadays. The sea is a strong factor that keeps people from leaving. Even when everything else seems to be against them, the love for the sea is something that ties them all together and to this land by the sea.
Q: How does the music add to the atmosphere of your film?
A: We aimed the music to be part of the landscape and give character to each place we were representing, also to be representative of the people that appear on screen. Alexandra grew up in this region and having been to concerts with these people, it became more intuitive to understand which references and instruments made sense for the film. Nico Tricot (the musician) also added an Arabic tone to the music that helped underline the identity of this region, because Algarve had a very strong Arab presence that can still be felt today in the architecture. These musical moments help the transitions between places, gathering the voices and sounds of the environments we are seeing.
Q: How did you create the waves — visually and through sound?
A: It was very important to characterize this most aggressive of seas on the Atlantic coast, where fishermen risk their lives. The areas where the waves break on the rocks have a special force that is different from the calmer waves that break on the sand. We actually brought the animation team to Algarve, so they can see the reality, draw, live the place, watch the sea, study the rhythm of the waves. We feel it was a fundamental momento on our production, to bring the people who were going to bring our film to life to the context we wanted to portray. The waves were animated by hand, frame by frame, just like everything in the film. The white on the waves is actually black graphite powder, painted and inverted to white in compositing, to create the splash of foam when the waves crash on the rocks. The sound of the sea was also a very important element for us in the film. We recorded several waves during our visits, but the sound designer Bernardo Bento, ended up recording himself the waves, getting a better (more professional) version of the final sound we hear on screen.
Q: What aspect of making “Percebes” are you most proud of as a directing duo / through your collaboration process?
A: To give a voice to the people of the Algarve, to make the people we portray feel represented and praised, while at the same time making public many of their concerns, generating empathy and creating a dialogue around the place we choose to live. This was our main objective as filmmakers. As far as the technical challenges were concerned, we wanted to get out of our comfort zone by working with materials that were new to us and explore the use of color more. I think that was also a challenge we set ourselves and we’re glad we did it.
Q: How would you feel about being Oscar nominated for “Percebes”?
A: We would be really honored to see our film in such an honorable place. We have had the support of our team, the people we are representing and the community. This nomination would mean bringing their voice and trust to another level. We know how hard it is to get in that spot, so the nomination would mean for us that our work has touched beyond what we imagined possible to reach. It would definitely be a huge help to allow us to continue making films that are meaningful for us and the people to watch. It would make us feel really grateful.
- INTERVIEW: The Meaning Of “Percebes” - January 8, 2025
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