Debt to Berlin filmmaker

Ocelot said his style owed much to German filmmaker Lotte Reiniger, a pioneer of silhouette in cinema who began working on movies nearly 100 years ago.

After seeing a Reiniger film, the French director said he asked a children's workshop he was leading to try to make its own silhouette film, an idea which met with spectacular success.

"I said, well, that's it, I have found my method, I'm going to use these silhouettes," he said.

"It was 20 years ago and I've been doing these things since then. So thanks to Lotte!"

He said he had no other aim in making films than to enjoy himself and create something audiences enjoy.

"Fairy tales are my language, all fairy tales from any part of the planet," he said. "I like swimming happily in them."

Asked if he felt the stories in Tales of the Night portrayed the hero more positively than the heroine, he replied:

"There will be other stories in the future, but in everything I do I attempt to be fair and respect equality. Perhaps there's an imbalance, and if that is the case here, I'm horrified, I have to say."

Ocelot has said he planned to make a sequel to his "Kirikou" series as well as a new story set in Paris in 1900. Tales of the Night is due in French theatres in July.