From the film-maker:

This painting was based on an old belief that alchemists could turn any base metals into silver and gold, and were accused of using up all their material belongings in their futile search to discover them.
The disorderly interior made me wonder how far a human being would go on a useless search fuelled by greed, and I decided that a character so blinded by his own greed would be an interesting point to base my animation around.
I felt I needed this character, with his obsession for gold, to live far away from anybody and anything. He would have to be self-sufficient and uninterested in anything but himself and his quest. However, for a little company I wanted him to have made his own family, who love him dearly, and whom you feel distraught for at the end.
I think my folklore animation can speak to people on many levels, with its moral for the viewers to recognise and absorb.

Emily Braham

A piece inspired by Adriaen van Ostade: An Alchemist, 1661