Ugo Bienvenu’s handiwork should already be familiar to cinephiles. On Eden, Mia Hansen-Løve’s 2014 drama based on her DJ brother’s friendship with Daft Punk, Bienvenu was a hand double for the main character. “The actor [Félix de Givry] didn’t know how to draw,” Bienvenu tells me in Durrant’s Hotel, in between bites of duck pasta. “Every time he’s drawing, that’s my hand!”

Bienvenu, a 38-year-old French illustrator and filmmaker, has a busy day ahead. The previous week, his directorial debut, Arco, was nominated for the Best Animated Feature Oscar. Tonight, he’s taking part in a post-screening Q&A with Natalie Portman, a producer on the film, and Alfonso Cuarón as the moderator. Bienvenu, then, isn’t afraid to name drop: Brady Corbet was full of praise; Thomas Bangalter of Daft Punk called it the best film he’s ever seen; Steven Spielberg sent a letter of appreciation. “I love that directors don’t talk about it as an animated film,” says Bienvenu. “They see it as an actual movie.”

Arco was written by Bienvenu and de Givry, the pair having met on the set of Eden, and there is indeed a hint of Daft Punk to the movie’s robot-heavy vision of the future. In 2075, a 10-year-old girl, Iris (Romy Fay), eats dinner at home with holograms of her workaholic, absent parents. In their place is an android nanny, Mikki (Portman and Mark Ruffalo speaking at the same time), whose labour is both manual and emotional. Even at school, Iris and her classmates are taught by a talking computer. What blows her mind, tech-wise, though, is when she stumbles upon a 9-year-old boy, Arco (Juliano Krue Valdi), who’s travelled back in time from 2932.

While sci-fi films typically present the future as overtly dystopian, Arco colourfully depicts 2075 on Earth as simultaneously frightening and saveable. There is, the film suggests, reason to still have hope: next to the rampant fires are corners of nature that have survived. “The movie is all about how the only thing that will allow change is our imagination,” says Bienvenu. “If we want things to change, we have to imagine how we want the world first.” He argues that his vision of 2075 is merely an exaggerated version of 2026. “Mikki is like AI. The holograms are like Zoom sessions. It’s a world of indifference.”

Chased by three conspiracy theorists (Will Ferrell, Andy Samberg, Flea) who want to prove the existence of time travel, Arco is assisted by Iris in camouflaging himself in the 2075 environment until he’s able to transport back to 2932. The action set-pieces take full advantage of the medium: Arco speeds through clouds with a rainbow-coloured cape; robots chase the kids through a room full of simulated dinosaurs; climate change leads to wildfires painting the streets molten red.

The science doesn’t exactly make sense, nor is it meant to. Bienvenu argues that the average person doesn’t know how their smartphone works, so why should he explain time travel? “A producer told me that what I couldn’t explain, shouldn’t be in the movie,” he says. “But I realised that everything I couldn’t understand, had to be in the movie, because it was deeper than me.” He complains that too many filmmakers use the conscious part of their brain, rather than their unconscious thoughts. “It’s like watching someone do IKEA furniture in front of you. It’s so boring. You know what the next shot will be.”

Children know when you lie and tell the truth. As a kid, I hated when adults would lie to me

For 15 years, Bienvenu has been authoring graphic novels, including 2019’s System Preference. “Drawing is the direct link with the unconscious,” he says. “If you’re a director of animation, you should draw.” Story ideas come from taking a pen to a blank page? “It’s drawing, then writing, then drawing, then writing. Cinema is about images. If directors don’t know how to draw, they write, and they try to use text to bring the images. But I can bring you the frames right away. Animation shouldn’t be financed based on a script – it should be the drawings. Akira Kurosawa’s movies came from him drawing his storyboards.”

The 2D animation of Arco certainly has a hand-crafted quality that’s redolent of Bienvenu’s drawing background, especially as Mikki is a character from System Preference. Moreover, Bienvenu cites inspirations such as old Disney movies and Hayao Miyazaki. In fact, Arco has been repeatedly referred to by critics as France’s version of Studio Ghibli. The director believes there are a few overlaps: the lack of violence, the role of the unconscious, and the interplay between humans and nature.

“I’ve been working for 15 years in this style, and nobody in France has told me about Miyazaki. They told me I was like Moebius. But Miyazaki was influenced by Moebius, so perhaps the wheel has [been completed]. I’m honoured because Miyazaki is one of the best artists ever. Sometimes people want to put you in a box. But to me, it’s the best box ever.”

Like Studio Ghibli’s filmography, Arco can be appreciated by audiences of all ages. After screenings, Bienvenu has noticed that kids and adults have similar responses to the film. “As a kid, nobody respected the adult in me, and now I’m an adult, I feel like no one respects my inner child,” he says. “Children are so intelligent, and most of the time we make them stupid by telling them bad stories, thinking they can’t understand things. But children know when you lie and tell the truth. As a kid, I hated when adults would lie to me. So I want the movie to tell kids, ‘The world isn’t good now, but we can build a better one. Our imagination makes things better.’”

Throughout the interview, Bienvenu repeatedly uses the word “imagination”, and, without me mentioning it, he goes off on a rant about despising AI. Storytelling, the director says, comes from human emotions, whereas AI relies on data. “Everybody has an imagination, and it makes life better. When you pee, you imagine. When you cook, you imagine.”

Do you imagine when you pee, because you’re not using a phone? “Yeah,” he says. “When we’re bored and having an idea, our phone rings. We used to be in the cave of our subconscious, finding ideas. We really have to stop doing all this shit with AI and phones, and go back to our inner selves.”

Arco is out in UK cinemas now