LITTLE ROCK -- In 1997, Kirby Atkins started writing an animated movie.
It was about a family of creatures called thoriphants -- sort of like a cross between a donkey and an elephant -- who live as slaves on a farm owned by a bitter old man.
One of the thoriphants, Mosley, along with his son Rue, discovers a cave with ancient thoriphant drawings, and Mosley embarks on a life-changing quest.
The long-gestating "Mosley," starring Lucy Lawless, John Rhys-Davies and Rhys Darby was released in New Zealand and Australia in 2019. Atkins, who grew up in Little Rock, directed the film and is the voice of Mosley. His daughter, Leah, voices Rue.
The movie is the first co-production of the New Zealand/China Film Group and was nominated for Best Animated Feature Film at the 2019 Asia Pacific Screen Awards. A festival run came next, including screenings at the Ottawa Animation Film Festival and the Burbank International Film Festival.
If all goes well, it should hit streaming services in the U.S. this year.
Atkins, 52, is a 1986 graduate of Little Rock Central High School. His father, Bill, worked at the Arkansas Arts Center.
"I have great memories of Little Rock. I remember taking courses at the Arts Center while waiting for Dad to get off work," he says from his home in Carmel, Calif.
He taught high school for a bit, but by the time he was 28, he was ready for a change.
"'Toy Story' had just come out, and it was a brand new way of making films. I just started teaching myself how to do that kind of animation."
Atkins ended up at what is now the Portland, Ore.-based Laika Studios and made "Mutt," which won Best Animated Short at the Hollywood Film Festival.
He directed "Jimmy Neutron" for Nickelodeon and sold scripts for movies that never got made.
"That's actually a job," he says. "But these stories I poured my heart into would get turned into hamburger during the production process."
It was not a fate he wanted for "Mosley."
"I started out just seeing if I could make this film," says Atkins, who lived on and off with his family in New Zealand while working for director Peter Jackson's Weta Digital special effects company.
He spent years writing, drawing, editing and tweaking "Mosley" in his spare time and recruited Leah, who was 7, to voice Rue in the early stages.
"She knew the story so well and had lived with it for so long. I just recorded her and I playing out scenes. She was so good, and it felt so natural. Those are the exact scenes that are in the movie."
Leah was 18 when the film finally went into production and 20 when it debuted.
"It's a time capsule for my family," Atkins says. "It's like home movies. It's uber-personal, and I'm just glad it worked out."
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