Anu-Laura Tuttelberg is an artist based in Tallinn, Estonia. She works as a freelance film director and sculptor directing and designing puppet films. She makes set designs at animation studios and teaches puppet animation in Estonian Academy of Arts.

ABOUT ART AND FILM MAKING

For me stop-motion film is a technique which contains all the art mediums that fascinate me – photography, scenography, sculpture, film. It enables me to create a whole imaginary world out of nothing. In stop-motion film not a single detail is there by chance, everything in the film is intentional and has a reason or a meaning. What is so intriguing about animated film is that it is not limited in its visual design by reality. 

In my films I like to bring out the characteristics of stop-motion technique. To work with light, to use the technique’s own peculiarity – that the animation is created by photographing the movement frame by frame taking long time between the individual images and therefore leaving gaps in time and creating a new time. A time with multiple parallel movements, a slow and a fast time existing simultaneously. The slow time of the animator and the puppet while animating, the “real” time of the puppet moving in the film, and life passing by fast in the background.

Stop-motion film is like a concentration of time. It might take few years to make a film that is 10 minutes long. But those years are present in those five minutes. They are visible and sensible in the details, in the years of work, ideas, inspiration and persistency.

BIOGRAPHY

Anu-Laura Tuttelberg graduated MA degree in animation at Estonian Academy of Arts in 2013. She made her first animation Fly Mill/ Kärbeste veski (2012) a puppet film as her graduation film. Fly Mill has screened in more than hundred festivals around the world and won numerous prizes. Her first film after graduation, a short animated film On The Other Side Of The Woods/ Teisel pool metsa premiered in June 2014 at Annecy International Animation Festival and has won three First Prizes and a Best Debut prize at festivals.

For the past ten years Anu-Laura has been working on a stop-motion trilogy of films shot outdoors with porcelain puppets as characters. The first in the trilogy Winter In The Rainforest shot in the jungles of Mexico and Peru premiered at Annecy International Animation Festival in June 2019. It received three Grand Prix’s and eight special prizes at festivals. The second film On Weary Wings Go By shot at the snowy beach in the winter in Estonia and Norway premiered at the prestigeous Locarno film festival in August 2024. The third film of the trilogy is yet to be made.

Anu-Laura has made set designs for numerous stop motion animations such as The Lemonade Tale (2013) by Vallo Toomla, Tik-Tak (2015), Empty Space (2016) and ‘Til We Meet Again (2021) by Ülo Pikkov at Nukufilm studio in Estonia. She has worked as a puppet designer for a feature stop motion Morten on the Ship of Fools (2018, Estonia, Ireland, Belgium) by Kaspar Jancis and a short stop motion film Man Wanted (2019, Greece, Estonia) by Irida Zhonga.

Anu-Laura Tuttelberg teaches animation in Estonian Academy of Arts.

contact anulaura@gmail.com

FILMOGRAPHY

DIRECTOR OF STOP-MOTION FILMS

“On Weary Wings Go By” / “Linnud läinud”, Fork Film (Estonia), Moon Birds Studios (Estonia), Art Shot (Lithuania), 2024

“Winter In The Rainforest” / “Talv vihmametsas”, Nukufilm Studio (Estonia), Moon Birds Studios (Estonia), Estudio Carabás (Mexico), Art Shot (Lithuania), 2019

“On The Other Side Of The Woods” / “Teisel pool metsa”, Nukufilm, Anu-Laura Tuttelberg, Estonian academy of Arts, Estonia, 2014

“Fly Mill” / “Kärbeste veski”, Estonian Academy of Arts, Estonia, 2012

“Miss Julie” (a photo film), Estonian Academy of Arts, 2009

DESIGNER IN STOP-MOTION FILMS

“’Til We Meet Again” (“Taaskohtumine”,2021dir Ülo Pikkov, Nukufilm Studio, Estonia)

“Captain Morten and the Spider Queen” (2018 dir Kaspar Jancis, Nukufilm Studio, Estonia)

“Empty Space” (“Tühi ruum”,2016dir Ülo Pikkov, Nukufilm Studio, Estonia)

“Tik-Tak” (2015 dir Ülo Pikkov, Nukufilm Studio, Estonia)

“It’s About Time” (2014 dir Ivo Briedis, Atomart studio, Latvia)

“The Lemonade Tale” (“Limonaadi lugu”, 2013 dir Vallo Toomla, Nukufilm Studio, Estonia)

EXHIBITIONS

Group exhibition,Jingdezhen International Ceramic Art Biennale, Jingdezhen, China, 2023

Group exhibition “The Secret Life of Objects”, Northern Clay Center, Minneapolis, USA, March – April 2021

Solo exhibition “Winter In The Rainforest. Porcelain puppets and short film”, Galeria Casa Diana, San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, December 2019 – January 2020

Group exhibition “Once Upon A Time…”,  City Gallery Peterborough, UK, March – May 2017

EDUCATION

2009-2013 Estonian Academy of Art, animation department (MA)
2006-2009 Estonian Academy of Art, scenography department (BA)
2003-2006 Tartu Art College, photography department (BA), (ungraduated)