A Song of Resilience: ‘The Last Whale Singer’ Director Reza Memari Takes Us on a Deep Dive into the New Animated Feature

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

Over 15 years ago, German-Iranian filmmaker Reza Memari was watching a documentary about humpback whales and discovered that the giant mammals have actual singers in their tribe. “It’s still unclear why they sing and what the songs mean, but I was absolutely fascinated,” says the writer-director of the new animated feature The Last Whale Singer. “Right away, an image came into my mind of a humpback who doesn’t have a song. There’s something universally relatable about finding your voice in a world that sometimes makes it difficult to be heard.”

That’s how the journey of The Last Whale Singer began. Produced by Telescope Animation, the movie will be released in Germany in February of next year. “At that time, I was still making Richard the Stork (U.S. title: A Stork’s Journey), which is about a tiny orphaned sparrow who is raised by a stork family and believes he’s a stork too. The idea of exploring a gigantic animal with zero self-confidence as my next project intrigued me!”

‘These days, it’s so easy to be intimidated, retreat, stay silent. Instead, I want audiences to find their voices, collaborate and ‘sing’ for freedom and peace.

— Writer-director Reza Memari

After several years of marine research and story development, Memari pitched The Last Whale Singer to Telescope Animation co-founder, producer Maite Wokoeck, who connected with the idea and set the whole moviemaking process into motion. “I scribbled down my first notes in 2011, started developing the treatment in 2015 and completed the first screenplay draft in 2018,” Memari recalls. “We started preproduction in 2020 with the first beat boards and then went into full production in 2023. Production is scheduled to wrap in June 2025, so it’s been a long, intensive and deeply satisfying journey!”

The film, which is a co-production between Germany’s Telescope Animation, PFX in the Czech Republic and La Boîte à Fanny in Canada, was animated in Maya and rendered in Unreal Engine (about 75%) and Houdini (25%). According to the director, around 100 people worked on the project.

A Whale of a Job

Of course, as any fan of marine life will tell you, the giant, swimming creatures and their watery habitats are not the easiest things to bring to life in CG animation. “I believe whales are the most elegant and graceful animals on Earth, swimming through the most mysterious and breathtaking places on our planet,” says Memari. “I wanted to do these majestic creatures and our precious oceans justice, so from the beginning I envisioned a visual language that isn’t too stylized. I didn’t want to go too cartoony because, for me, that comes at the cost of emotional depth, real stakes, a sense of genuine danger and ultimately grief. Much like in The Lion King (1994), I wanted to portray a timeless world that feels close to our own, while speaking its own distinct visual language.”

The director says he didn’t want to tarnish the natural beauty of the amazing marine species featured in the movie. “Then there’s the amazing scale of these animals,” he adds. “Compared to a crab, the whale is enormous, but when you place that same whale into the vast ocean, he suddenly seems like just a drop of water. This play with perspective and scale allows us to balance the awe-inspiring majesty of these creatures with the intimate vulnerability of Vincent’s emotional journey. There’s something very powerful about seeing such an enormous being experience such profound self-doubt. The visual style helps us feel both the vastness of the ocean and the depth of our characters’ inner worlds, which was essential for a story about finding your voice.”

The enormity of the film’s challenges did not escape Memari’s mind. “Right from the start, we wanted to take innovative paths and use Unreal Engine for production — and we did!” he says. “However, because the tech was still relatively new and untested back then, we had to learn and teach ourselves everything and build a whole new real-time pipeline. After some tests, we realized we couldn’t achieve a satisfying look for all shots that take place above the water, so we used Houdini to simulate and render everything above the surface.”

Of course, the film’s underwater setting demanded moving particles, caustics on characters and sets, God rays from above and a water surface. “It’s been quite a challenge to get these many moving parts under control and balanced throughout numerous shots, to maintain continuity and believability,” says the director. “Another tricky aspect was scale and scale differences. When you’re dealing with whales, you’re dealing with creatures that are 16 meters long. Finding the right balance in storyboard and layout, figuring out ways to frame shots where a ginormous humpback whale is conversing with a tiny seahorse, conveying feelings and playing with all these size differences was difficult but fun. And later on, rendering all these animals in our unbelievably vast sets was incredibly demanding!”

The team was also tasked with storyboarding and animating more of the characters, whose eyes are on the sides of their heads. “I can’t tell you how many headaches our storyboard artists and animators had because they had to put all the emotions and acting nuances into a single eye, instead of using two,” recalls Memari. “In hindsight, I understand why they moved the eyes together in Finding Nemo! Also, the vast array of different species made rigging and animating complex, because you basically have to start from scratch when you have a fish rig but now need to build a jellyfish rig. The jellyfish and the enormous Leviathan were among the hardest characters to rig and animate!”

The fact that the movie had to be made with the scaled-back budget of a European feature production was another hurdle to overcome. “I had to shorten the script, reduce the runtime, trim the cast, simplify sets, scale back FX — you name it,” says the helmer. “Of course, this is simply the reality of filmmaking; you never have enough money (even in Hollywood, I have learned). But honestly, none of these reductions hurt the core of the film. In fact, I’d argue that these limitations and necessary cuts actually made the story stronger. The constraints forced us to focus on what truly mattered to Vincent’s journey, which ultimately resulted in a more focused and emotionally resonant film.”

But all the hard work has been worth it for the filmmaker and his team. “This film is such a labor of love,” he says. “Everyone on this multinational team put their heart and soul into the production, and I think it really shows. Together, we’ve created a glorious, sonorous world filled with magical, funny, mysterious creatures. I can’t help but feel that we’ve all put in the hard work to help our main character Vincent find his song, and I couldn’t be more grateful to everyone who contributed with such passion. There’s something fitting about a film about finding harmony that required such wonderful teamwork to create.”

When asked about his overall visual style as a director, Memari modestly responds, “This is only my second film, so I’m not sure I have a signature style yet. The Last Whale Singer is about finding your voice and making it really helped me find mine. I’ve definitely become more confident in my writing and directing and in managing projects of this scale. I’ve also become much calmer regarding the process itself. I’m learning to actually enjoy the journey rather than just focusing on the destination. Which is somewhat fitting for a film about whales, isn’t it?”

Triumph of the Indies

The 49-year-old director is also optimistic about the future of European animation. “We are in a time of flux,” he says. “Everything is changing: technologies, societies, norms, costs and audiences. It’s difficult for me to predict where we’re headed. If you had told me before the Oscars this year that a Latvian film with a $4 million budget could win against the Goliaths of Hollywood, I would have said you’re crazy. But it happened. Why? Because the director, Gints Zilbalodis, had a story to tell, a pure vision, made with good, nongreedy intentions and so much heart. And in the case of Flow, I’m doubly happy because, just like The Last Whale Singer, it’s an original story, not based on any safe-haven IP. So, I think as long as we keep making films that have an intention, a voice and meaning, we’ll be discovered and cherished across the globe.”

And what does he hope audiences will take away from Vincent’s journey? “Just like our main character, I would like audiences to leave the theater feeling empowered, with a boost of self-confidence and courage to overcome their fears. These days, it’s so easy to be intimidated, retreat, stay silent. Instead, I want audiences to find their voices, collaborate and ‘sing’ for freedom and peace.”

The Last Whale Singer will sing its song worldwide in 2026.