EMERGE likes Michel Gondry something fierce. Which is why we were so excited to learn about Valerie Pirson, a young animator and director from France who got her start professionally by producing several animated sequences for Gondry's visionary but somewhat underwhelming film The Science of Sleep.

Apparently, Gondry saw Pirson's student film Pistache, which is animated in a fashion not dissimilar to his own animated video for Devendra Banhart's "A Ribbon," and hired her immediately.

What has followed is the stuff of film school fantasy. Pirson has been snatched up for representation by the massively respected Partizan and is currently directing music videos. Her first clip is for Olivia Ruiz's "Le Femme Chocolat," a rather saccharine love song that profits immensely from Pirson's direction. While the song itself is rather annoying, with lyrics that roughly translate to sentiments such as "my blood is hot chocolate," the video blends tastefully shot live action sequences with a truly superb animated segments full of humor and warmth. Fun to watch and expertly realized, the animations also manage to explore perennially relevant themes such as love, sex and vanity without ever getting heavy, preachy or cliched.

With two very cool student films and a brilliant music video to her credit, Pirson promises to be a director to watch in the coming years. Thanks for finding her Michel!

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