Flower Power: ‘Dandelion’s Odyssey’ Director Momoko Seto Discusses Her Emotional Animated Adventure

This article was written for the May-June ’25 issue of Animation Magazine (No. 350).

EXCLUSIVE: You know you’re in for a treat when the main characters in an animated movie are dandelion seeds, firefly squids, a giant tree frog, a purple sea urchin, flying tadpoles and a diabolical praying mantis! Of course, you can’t expect anything ordinary from Momoko Seto’s work. The talented Tokyo-born artist, who also works as a film director for the French National Center for Scientific Research, is bringing her latest movie, Dandelion’s Odyssey (French title: Planètes) to the Cannes Critic’s Week and the Annecy Festival this year.

The director explored similarly unusual subjects in her previous experimental shorts (which focused on small planets named A, Z, ∑ and ∞). “The movie is fiction, inspired by science,” says Seto in an email interview with Animation Magazine. “Originally, there were four other small planets — where time-lapse and plants, slow motion and insects, mineral and organic matter, the infinitely large and the infinitely small already coexisted,” she explains. “These experimental films sparked in me the desire to go even further in exploring a nonhuman form of storytelling — one that sees the world through a plant’s perspective yet carries the emotional stakes and structure of an adventure film!”

In Search of Home

The movie centers on four friends that crash-land on an unknown planet and have to find a new home to carry on their species. “I choose my characters by researching scientific literature, selecting species for their extraordinary traits. It’s these unique behaviors that shape the science-fiction dimension of the film,” Seto explains.

To bring her vision to animated life, Seto and her team used a combination of techniques: time-lapse, ultra slow motion, extreme macro, stackshot photography and robotics — all to build each image frame by frame. “Time-lapse is, precisely, the art of compressing time,” she points out. “It involves filming a very slow natural phenomenon — often imperceptible to the naked eye — over a given period. By speeding it up, we are finally able to perceive the invisible. Slow motion, on the other hand, is the art of unfolding time. Like time-lapse, the camera captures extremely rapid movements and breaks them down. The filmed subjects begin to transform into ‘something else.’ In this way, technology is not just a tool to enhance vision — it reveals what lies on the other side of the visible world.”

“I choose my characters by researching scientific literature, selecting species for their extraordinary traits. It’s these unique behaviors that shape the science-fiction dimension of the film.”

— Director Momoko Seto

The animation was produced in Belgium, in a studio based in Liège. The team was supervised by renowned animator Guionne Leroy (Chicken Run, Toy Story), along with a team of four creative animators. The team relied on Maya and Blender to animate the movie.

“Inside an orangery set up within the Château de Rambuteau in Burgundy, we built a dedicated time-lapse studio,” Seto tells us. “Seventeen cameras shooting simultaneously over the course of nine months, capturing 20 miniature sets with different staged plants. A single shot could last anywhere from five to 30 days. The final images are the result of multiple layers, superimposed like a video collage.”

This labor of love has been in the making for almost nine years. Seto began writing the film back in 2016 with Alain Layrac, and it took three years to complete. After putting the financing together for another two years, the production began in 2021. “It took over two-and-a-half years,” recalls the director. “Postproduction lasted another two years, including one full year dedicated to the creation of the animation, and the music composition stretched over both years.”

For Seto, all the hard work has been worth the wait. “I’m very happy to have made a film that is truly unique,” she notes. “It’s one that touches on something that has never quite [been] done like this before or quite seen before. The story is told from the eye level of a dandelion seed, a film that is neither a documentary nor fully an animated film, nor entirely fiction.

“The music and sound design are entirely in tune with the immersive experience the film offers. It’s really about wonder — the awe that we feel before the beauty and power of nature. And the final scene still brings me to tears every time!”

Time-Lapse Trials

One of the film’s biggest challenges was keeping the main characters’ emotions understandable throughout the film. “This wasn’t easy considering the fact that the main character is basically a stick with a few hairs on its head!” shares Seto. “The other tough challenge was to successfully layer footage of animals shot in a studio in France, with vast Icelandic landscapes filmed by drone and tiny plants captured in time-lapse inside a greenhouse — across 666 shots. That was really demanding.”

When asked about her biggest animation influences, Seto mentions a wide range of eclectic artists. “In terms of technique, I have to include the films of Jan Švankmajer, Michel Gondry’s music videos, as well as many art videos — including works by Pipilotti Rist, Mihai Grecu and Erkka Nissinen,” she says. “As for my animation hero, it would undeniably be Hayao Miyazaki. I discovered Nausicaä when I was six, and my mother tells me I used to watch it on repeat — every single day!”

As her movie gets ready to bask in the limelight during festival season, Seto hopes audiences will also heed its gentle message. “Nature is not a backdrop to be trampled on, that it is not something separate from us,” she says. “All the small things around us are actors in an action film, and a plant’s growth is so beautiful it can bring us to tears. We are all forces of nature, connected to one another, and together, we form our own planet.”

Dandelion’s Odyssey is produced by Miyu Productions, Ecce Films and UMedia. It is one of 10 films selected to compete in the feature film category at Annecy. Indie Sales is handling international distribution.