‘Snowtime!’ creators on getting the elements of winter, childhood and conflict just right

The premise for “Snowtime!” is simple enough: Children on a two-week winter school break in a small village learn valuable life lessons when they form two teams for a huge (and greatly allegorical) snowball fight. But the Canadian film, which received a 70 percent fresh rating from Rotten Tomatoes, has won acclaim for a charming, whimsical look whose wintry persona is come by honestly. “Lord of the Flies” with snowballs, it’s not.

“We know what winter looks like, we know what winter feels like,” director Jean-Francois Pouliot, who lives in Montreal, said at TheWrap Screening Series on Monday in West Hollywood. “I came in with one objective as far as look and style: I want this film to feel like winter much more than ‘Frozen.’ I admire ‘Frozen,’ but I want this film to have the feeling of wet wool.

“Winter has very different colors. It has all the colors you see in our film,” he continued, while speaking to TheWrap’s Sharon Waxman alongside Paul Risacher, one of the film’s screenwriters.

“War is a messy, messy business,” a “Snowtime!” character says, making a statement that’s more than a little true of the film’s own creation. One of 27 films vying for the 2017 animation Oscar, it reflects collaboration; innovative ways of resolving indie and big-budget esthetics, live-action and animation realities — plus a grasp of the power of a familiar story, and the risks of finding a new way to tell it. ...

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Image credits: Waxman, Pouliot and Risacher: Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images