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The Three Inventors (Les trois inventeurs) is a 13-minute, 12-second French animated short made in 1980 by writer-director Michel Ocelot. Its white cut-paper world is part of the story’s expression: the inventors make useful machines, but the people around them respond to their difference with fear and rejection.
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What is The Three Inventors about?
The Animafest Zagreb catalogue describes a world made of white lace, where two great inventors and a little inventor create useful machines. Other people dislike them and fail to understand their difference. That synopsis establishes the contrast between invention and public rejection; it does not specify every event in the film.
Laura Cochrane’s 2012 Make: article describes the inventors as a family and recounts a scene in which the father pilots a bird-shaped hot-air balloon that frightened townspeople attack. That is a scene description from the magazine, rather than wording from the festival catalogue.
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How does the cut-paper animation work?
Ocelot makes the material visible instead of hiding it behind the illusion of a seamless animated world. In a statement attributed to him and reproduced by the Entrevues Belfort film page, he says he deliberately made the film in white paper, lit from the side so viewers could see it was cut paper. He also describes using the paper’s own qualities—cutting, folding and destroying it—as part of the film’s expression.
The technique gives the white forms a double role: they depict the film’s world and reveal the physical material from which that world is built. Paper is not just a surface for the images; its transformation is visible in the finished animation.
Film facts
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Original title | Les trois inventeurs |
| English title | The Three Inventors |
| Country and year | France, 1980 |
| Runtime | 13 minutes 12 seconds |
| Director and screenplay | Michel Ocelot |
| Production | a.a.a. |
| Music | Christian Maire |
| Sound | Robert Cohen-Solal |
| Voice | Michel Elias |
| Distributor credit in the Animafest catalogue | Agence du court métrage |
These credits and the runtime are listed in the Animafest Zagreb 2009 film catalogue.
Was it shown at MoMA?
Yes. The Museum of Modern Art’s press release lists the film in its October 23, 1980 program, “The Best of Zagreb and Ottawa ’80.” This documents a scheduled program appearance; it is not evidence that the film won an award. MoMA’s 1980 press release provides the program record.
Where can you watch it?
The catalogue credits Agence du court métrage as distributor, but that historical listing does not establish current rights or legal viewing options. Current streaming, rental, purchase and screening availability is not established by the sources cited here.
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