Mistthom’s animated musing on avarice

Directed by Jules Bourgès, through Wizz, this bewitching music video for French musician Mistthom's track Belle follows a king who discovers a mysterious mountain concealing a stack of treasure. 

But what begins as a quest fuelled by curiosity soon becomes a darker tale of greed, as the king’s desire to possess the riches threatens to consume him.

In his directorial debut Bourgès uses hand-crafted 2D animation to build a fever-dream, acid-green world of maze-filled castles, fractured mountains and big-eyed horse-riding bat creatures.

Bourgès and musician Thibault Labarrere – aka Mistthom – had previously collaborated on Mistthom’s debut EP, Dans La Peau du Personnage, for which Jules created the cover artwork and a short animation. 

A few years later, Bourgès was at one of Mistthom’s concerts and the track Belle fired up his imagination. By the end of the concert, the idea for the animation had taken shape. The music played a direct role in shaping the film’s narrative with its distinct 'chapters' that led to the structure of the engaging visual story.