Nimona Director Nick Bruno: Oscar Nomination Matters Because ‘Representation Matters’

Nimona was a profound Netflix animated movie. It began by poking holes in the fairy tale myth and grew to explore social groupthink and manipulation, all while advocating LGBTQ characters. It’s also lots of fun so when the American Cinematheque showed it in a theater this weekend, I had to take the chance to see it on the big screen.

The directors and creator of Nimona were at a Q&A after and Co-Director Nick Bruno said the film’s Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature is less important for rewarding the filmmakers’ work and more for what Nimona represents.

“We never really care about awards and all that stuff either but why it matters so much for us this year is because representation matters,” Bruno said. “Having a movie like this be nominated, having a movie like this win, we’re artists. We’ll never be happy enough. An award isn’t going to do it for us but to have a movie recognized for representing something that has never been represented in our field before is incredibly important. We take our jobs very seriously in that we’re trying to make movies for the kids in ourselves who needed these stories when we didn’t have it. The industry is like let’s go back to telling stories like ‘I dream big.’ That’s bullsh*t. We need to stop with the subtext and sometimes just get to the text because the world needs it and representation matters.”

I got to ask them about the scene in the movie that resonated with me most, out of many. Nimona (Chloe Grace Moretz) is a shapeshifter who has always been seen as a monster by the kingdom. In her flashback, we see that Nimona just wanted to be friends with Gloreth (Charlotte Aldrich), and the town burned their own village down throwing torches at her. Haven’t we all been there? Someone caused their own problem and somehow it’s still our fault.

My question was how many versions did that scene go through to make it so clear the villagers were responsible for what they blamed on Nimona. Bruno joked, “We just keep a pulse on politics.”

Co-director Troy Quane explained the important theme they wanted to get across in that scene.

“Hopefully, when you watch the movie you realize they’re not just like, ‘Arr, we’re bad guys,’” Quane said. “They’re afraid. They’re terrified because of something different. All of that hate and that attack comes from their own fear which they then build a wall around themselves and imprison themselves with that fear for 1000 years and what that does to a society is really the comment we were trying to make there. Maybe we can just step back once in a while… Also, don’t always just trust a story at face value because in the telling of it, we’ll do the same thing. Our job is storytellers, we’re going to juice every story we tell you guys tonight just to make it a little bit funnier. That’s the thing. Don’t always trust what you heard. Take a look at it for yourself and see for yourself.”

But, Quane also pointed out that Nimona shouldn’t even have to explain herself. That’s a theme throughout the film as Ballister (Riz Ahmed) keeps asking for her story and she simply explains, “I am Nimona.”

“It was really important in that flashback that Nimona at any point in the movie could just tell you her story,” Quane said. “She can explain herself but she doesn’t need to nor should she have to nor should anybody have to. It’s here I am, accept me for what you see. It was very important that we didn’t have her tell anybody else but the audience. Ballister doesn’t know that story. Nobody else knows that story because she shouldn’t have to explain herself.”

Nimona creator ND Stevenson liked the way I described the scene, that they burn down their own village. A trans man, Stevenson created the web comic before his transition but sees how his feelings manifested in fiction.

“They are trying to attack what they see as a monster,” Stevenson said. “Instead, they hurt themselves, their own home, their own children. In the world right now, there is this incredible backlash and anger and hatred. It is fear and it’s also something else and it’s being directed at some of our youngest and most vulnerable people and they are trans kids. I think this movie is one that it is coming at a really important time because there’s an entire populace of people who should be our most protected and are nonetheless being attacked in this way. I think that its’ something I just want to keep in this conversation because this movie is reaching out to those people. For parents everywhere to understand what’s at stake in this conversation, in this fight, to protect those kids and people of all ages.”

Earlier in the Q&A Quane explained another visual way the film represented those themes of perception and acceptance that culminate in that flashback.

“Gloreth literally says, ‘Go back to the shadows from whence you came,’” Quane said. “It’s this idea of things we accept, things we are okay with we hold up to the light. Things that are distasteful, things we don’t like, we want to shove them into corners, under the bed, to the darkness where we don’t have to look at them. We don’t have to acknowledge them. They’re safely tucked away somewhere where they’re out of sight and thus out of mind. In all the sequences, it really is a struggle and the characters are always trying to go from the shadows to the light, going from being unaccepted to accepted. Sometimes even in subtle ways. There’s a moment where young Gloreth and young Nimona are picking apples. Nimona is so comfortable she turns into a bird and grabs this apple. Gloreth looks over her shoulder to the village almost like is this okay? You watch Nimona start to pull the apple back into the shadow and Gloreth stops her. Even in subtle little ways always looking for ways to see that retreat out of the light.”

Nimona takes place in a futuristic medieval kingdom. The look of the film is as revolutionary as its themes. Now Nimona joins animated films like Across the Spider-Verse, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem and The Boy and the Heron in exploring new looks and themes.

“This year is a tremendous year for diverse stories, for diverse looks in animation,” Bruno said. “I don’t want to say it’s a bit of a fluke. It is a bit of a fluke but it’s only a fluke at the same time as all the people that are there pushed really, really hard for that to happen. The industry more than ever does not want that to happen. That’s the reality. The reality is if you look at and you follow any of the animation trades like we do, there’s so much talk now like you’ve got to go back to things just being funny and silly. Every movie that’s out there this year has gone through a tremendous fight to be where it is.”