Director: Jim Capobianco, Pierre-Luc Granjon
Leonardo da Vinci's final years get a stop-motion reimagining in The Inventor, a 2023 animated drama that treats curiosity itself as the main character.
What is The Inventor about?
Restless and unwilling to stop questioning how the world works, Leonardo leaves Italy behind for the French court, where a rare kind of freedom lets him chase ideas that would have gotten him in trouble elsewhere. Flying machines, strange mechanical devices, and studies of the human body all pour out of his workshop, sketched and built with the same appetite. His path crosses with Marguerite, a headstrong French princess who pushes him past invention for its own sake and toward something closer to purpose. Together they edge toward a bigger question the film keeps circling back to: what does all this tinkering actually add up to? The story treats that search with warmth rather than solemnity, letting humor and stubborn wonder carry scenes that could easily have turned into a straightforward history lesson.
Cast & crew
Stephen Fry voices Leonardo with the dry wit the role calls for, while Daisy Ridley plays Marguerite and Marion Cotillard rounds out the principal cast. Co-director Jim Capobianco also lends his voice to the production, working alongside fellow co-director Pierre-Luc Granjon and supporting players Matt Berry, Natalie Palamides, Ben Stranahan, and Jane Osborn.
Context & significance
A joint production between France, Ireland, and the United States, The Inventor leans on stop-motion techniques to give its Renaissance setting a tactile, handmade texture rare in mainstream animation. Released in 2023 with a 92-minute runtime, it sits closer to animated biography than typical family fare, aimed at viewers curious about history as much as spectacle.
Where & how to watch
The Inventor streams on K-Time with Persian dubbing, letting Farsi-speaking viewers follow Leonardo's story without subtitles getting in the way. Reading about the film here costs nothing; watching it just needs a K-Time account login. Every part of the experience, from browsing to playback, is built around Farsi-speaking audiences in the diaspora.