Paris-based Eurozoom – the independent outfit that has recently backed “Suzume,” “Four Souls of Coyote,” and “Fox and Hare Save the Forest,” among others – was named distributor of the year at the recently wrapped Cartoon Movie, which ran from March 5 – 7 in Bordeaux. “Mars Express” director Jérémie Périn and “Mavka, The Forest Song” studio Animagrad rounded out the winners, claiming respective honors for director and producer of the year.
All are familiar faces at the European animation sector’s largest co-production and pitch forum. “Mavka, The Forest Song” was presented in concept in 2017 and returned as an in development title the following year, while “Mars Express” presented in 2019, screened as a work-in-progress in 2022, then a sneak-peak last year before claiming the director accolades at this latest edition. And so, given Cartoon Movie’s fidelity to projects shepherded and nourished by the program, one can reasonably expect to the see the Eurimages co-pro...
All are familiar faces at the European animation sector’s largest co-production and pitch forum. “Mavka, The Forest Song” was presented in concept in 2017 and returned as an in development title the following year, while “Mars Express” presented in 2019, screened as a work-in-progress in 2022, then a sneak-peak last year before claiming the director accolades at this latest edition. And so, given Cartoon Movie’s fidelity to projects shepherded and nourished by the program, one can reasonably expect to the see the Eurimages co-pro...
- 3/8/2024
- by Ben Croll
- Variety Film + TV
Former French President François Hollande has found a new gig. The Socialist Party leader, who served as the leader of France before current President Emmanuel Macron, has joined the voice cast of Silex & the City – The Movie, a feature-film spinoff of a popular, Simpsons-style short-format animated series.
Hollande will lend his famous voice to the new film, which is currently in production, joining more established French talent including Bruno Solo, Julie Gayet, Stéphane Bern, Léa Drucker, Frédéric Beigbeder, Guillaume Gallienne, Léa Salamé and Amélie Nothomb.
Silex & the City follows a Stone Age family, the Dotcoms who embark on a time-travel adventure into the future. Father Blog, voiced by Franck Ekinci, mother Spam (Noémie De Lattre) and their rebellious children Url (Fabien Limousin) and Web (Camille Serceau) are familiar to French audiences. A short-form series based on the comic of the same name by French cartoonist Jul has been a...
Hollande will lend his famous voice to the new film, which is currently in production, joining more established French talent including Bruno Solo, Julie Gayet, Stéphane Bern, Léa Drucker, Frédéric Beigbeder, Guillaume Gallienne, Léa Salamé and Amélie Nothomb.
Silex & the City follows a Stone Age family, the Dotcoms who embark on a time-travel adventure into the future. Father Blog, voiced by Franck Ekinci, mother Spam (Noémie De Lattre) and their rebellious children Url (Fabien Limousin) and Web (Camille Serceau) are familiar to French audiences. A short-form series based on the comic of the same name by French cartoonist Jul has been a...
- 12/8/2023
- by Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Former French President François Hollande is part of the voice cast for “Silex & the City – The Movie,” a big-screen spinoff of the popular short-format animated series set in the Stone Age.
“Silex & the City” is adapted from the comic book series by the same name created by French cartoonist Jul, which has sold over a million copies. The animated series, meanwhile, has been a hit on Franco-German network Arte, airing on primetime.
Written and co-directed by Jul alongside Jean-Paul Guigue, the film will blend 2D animation with live-action sequences. Besides Hollande, the well-known voice cast includes Bruno Solo, Julie Gayet, Stéphane Bern, Léa Drucker, Frédéric Beigbeder, Guillaume Gallienne, Léa Salamé and Amélie Nothomb. Now in production, the film is expected to be completed by spring 2024.
“Silex & the City – The Movie” follows the adventure of the Dotcom family — which consists of hunting professor Blog, geography teacher Spam and their rebellious children...
“Silex & the City” is adapted from the comic book series by the same name created by French cartoonist Jul, which has sold over a million copies. The animated series, meanwhile, has been a hit on Franco-German network Arte, airing on primetime.
Written and co-directed by Jul alongside Jean-Paul Guigue, the film will blend 2D animation with live-action sequences. Besides Hollande, the well-known voice cast includes Bruno Solo, Julie Gayet, Stéphane Bern, Léa Drucker, Frédéric Beigbeder, Guillaume Gallienne, Léa Salamé and Amélie Nothomb. Now in production, the film is expected to be completed by spring 2024.
“Silex & the City – The Movie” follows the adventure of the Dotcom family — which consists of hunting professor Blog, geography teacher Spam and their rebellious children...
- 12/7/2023
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
Encapsulating humanity’s weighty history and paths toward healing, director Véra Belmont (“Red Kiss”) takes a leap from live-action cinema to animated feature with her latest project, “My Father’s Secrets,” a Holocaust story that tackles generational familial trauma and redemption.
Based on the graphic novel “Second Generation” by Israeli illustrator Michel Kichka, the film is set for its market premiere at the Cannes Marché du Film, with the incentive for international markets of Elliott Gould leading the English voice cast.
“My Father’s Secrets,” set in Belgium, introduces two young brothers, Michel and Charly, who struggle with their father Henri’s reclusive nature surrounding his time at Auschwitz.
Their imaginations get the better of them as their father retreats inward on a personal journey to recoup his life after surviving the tragedies of internment. They hypothesize, snoop and act out in response, causing familial friction.
Sold by Simon Crowe...
Based on the graphic novel “Second Generation” by Israeli illustrator Michel Kichka, the film is set for its market premiere at the Cannes Marché du Film, with the incentive for international markets of Elliott Gould leading the English voice cast.
“My Father’s Secrets,” set in Belgium, introduces two young brothers, Michel and Charly, who struggle with their father Henri’s reclusive nature surrounding his time at Auschwitz.
Their imaginations get the better of them as their father retreats inward on a personal journey to recoup his life after surviving the tragedies of internment. They hypothesize, snoop and act out in response, causing familial friction.
Sold by Simon Crowe...
- 5/18/2022
- by Holly Jones
- Variety Film + TV
Exclusive: UK outfit Sc Films has boarded international sales rights to animation My Father’s Secrets, which is being produced by the art director of Oscar-nominee Persepolis.
The hand-drawn animation is based on the graphic novel by Israeli author Michel Kichka and documents his father’s experience both during and after the Holocaust. It ends with father and son making a highly emotional visit to Auschwitz.
The English and French-language film, formerly known as Second Generation, is a France-Belgium-Luxembourg co-production with Je Suis Bien Content (April And The Extraordinary World), Left Field Ventures (Madame Bovery) and Bidibul (White Fang) producing. Marc Jousset of Je Suis Bien Content was artistic director on Persopolis, winner of the Jury Prize at Cannes.
Kichka is adapting his original material. Directors are Véra Belmont (Red Kiss) and Xavier Picard (Moomins On The Riviera). Delivery is expected by Q2, 2020. Le Pacte will distribute in France.
Animation specialist Sc Films,...
The hand-drawn animation is based on the graphic novel by Israeli author Michel Kichka and documents his father’s experience both during and after the Holocaust. It ends with father and son making a highly emotional visit to Auschwitz.
The English and French-language film, formerly known as Second Generation, is a France-Belgium-Luxembourg co-production with Je Suis Bien Content (April And The Extraordinary World), Left Field Ventures (Madame Bovery) and Bidibul (White Fang) producing. Marc Jousset of Je Suis Bien Content was artistic director on Persopolis, winner of the Jury Prize at Cannes.
Kichka is adapting his original material. Directors are Véra Belmont (Red Kiss) and Xavier Picard (Moomins On The Riviera). Delivery is expected by Q2, 2020. Le Pacte will distribute in France.
Animation specialist Sc Films,...
- 8/29/2018
- by Andreas Wiseman
- Deadline Film + TV
April and the Extraordinary World will screen in competition at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival that started today and features the voice of Marion Cotillard in the lead.
Christian Desmares and Franck Ekinci directed the steampunk adventure adapted from Jacques Tardi’s graphic novel about a girl’s journey through a world where scientists have been imprisoned.
Eric Beckman negotiated the deal for Gkids with Aska Yamaguchi for Studiocanal and the distributor plans an early 2016 release in French and English-language versions.
April And The Extraordinary World is a France-Canada-Belgium co-production between Je Suis Bien Content, Studiocanal, Kaibou Production Umt, Need Productions, Arte France Cinéma, Jouror Distribution, Rtbf, Proximus and Tchack.
Marc Jousset and Ekinci served as executive producers.
Christian Desmares and Franck Ekinci directed the steampunk adventure adapted from Jacques Tardi’s graphic novel about a girl’s journey through a world where scientists have been imprisoned.
Eric Beckman negotiated the deal for Gkids with Aska Yamaguchi for Studiocanal and the distributor plans an early 2016 release in French and English-language versions.
April And The Extraordinary World is a France-Canada-Belgium co-production between Je Suis Bien Content, Studiocanal, Kaibou Production Umt, Need Productions, Arte France Cinéma, Jouror Distribution, Rtbf, Proximus and Tchack.
Marc Jousset and Ekinci served as executive producers.
- 6/15/2015
- by jeremykay67@gmail.com (Jeremy Kay)
- ScreenDaily
This review was written for the festival screening of "Persepolis".CANNES -- Discussions may grow heated following the premiere of "Persepolis" at the Festival de Cannes. But those discussions will focus more on the movie's politics than art. "Persepolis" is an animated feature by Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud based on Satrapi's graphic novel about her growing up in Mullah-ridden Iran during the Islamic Revolution and the Iran-Iraq war. The young woman, who now lives in Paris, paints a grim picture, one familiar to those of us in the West but one that many Iranians and Islamic fundamentalists will no doubt vehemently reject.
The drawings themselves are plain, very generalized and almost entirely in black and white. Perhaps Satrapi and Paronnaud feared that, were the animation more vital and realistic, the film would become too cartoonish and vulgar. Perhaps they're right. But as animation "Persepolis" is fairly uninteresting as the facial features do not convey much individuality.
Satrapi's dramatic young life so far has been anything but uninteresting. So the film should attract those interested in women's issues and politics in specialty venues. However, Sony Pictures Classics will have to market hard to reach out to adult moviegoers beyond those categories in North America.
Satrapi -- called Marjane in the film and voiced by Chiara Mastroianni -- is at a Paris airport, thinking back on her life, starting as a child under the Shah. While the country is modernized and Westernized by the Shah, much to the young girl's approval, her family chafe under the dictatorship, which sees family members imprisoned.
The glorious days of the Revolution last only briefly before Islamic Law cracks down on improper -- read: Western -- behavior and fashions. The film wrings wry humor from the black market young Marjane frequents to get tapes of Iron Maiden and cosmetics. During the eight-year war with Iraq, which ground up 1 million lives, the government cracks down further on dissent, executing thousands of political opponents.
Marjane's mom (Catherine Deneuve) and dad (Simon Abkarian) send her to Vienna to study but really to escape as she proves to be "just like her uncle," a rebellious personality jailed by both the Shah and the Mullahs. In Austria, she indulges in western "decadence" -- alcohol, cigarettes and sex. She experiences first love and its disappointment. A second love's bitter aftermath throws her into deep depression and even leaves her homeless for a while.
She begs her parents to let her return to Tehran, but the tyrannical restrictions on women's clothing and all social behavior plunge her into another depression. When she marries her boyfriend so they can be together outside of her house, the marriage is a failure. This brings about her decision to head for Paris and the life of an exile. But freedom has its price.
The film has many wonderful details such as her grandmother (the great Danielle Darrieux), who puts jasmine flowers inside her bra each morning so she will smell sweet and fresh. Or the malevolent security forces filled with young men with abiding hatred for women. Or her nighttime conversations with God and Karl Marx, deities who both fail her at times.
The filmmakers were right to believe that a live-action version of this story would have failed to achieve the universality "Persepolis" does. (In the department of thankfully avoided horrors, Satrapi has disclosed she was even offered a movie that would have starred Jennifer Lopez and Brad Pitt as her parents!) Animation allows any viewer to experience the story not as an exotic tale but as something happening to a person with whom we can readily identify.
PERSEPOLIS
Sony Pictures Classics
2.4.7 Films/France 3 Cinema
Credits:
Screenwriters-directors: Marjane Satrapi, Vincent Paronnaud
Based on the graphic novel by: Marjane Satrapi
Art director: Marc-Anthony Robert, Xavier Rigault
Animation: Marc Jousset, Christian Desmares
Production designer: Marisa Musy
Music: Olivier Bernet
Animation coordinator: Christian Desmares
Editor-compositor: Stephane Roche
Cast:
Marjane: Chiara Mastroianni
Tadji: Catherine Deneuve
Grandmother: Danielle Darrieux
Ebi: Simon Abkarian
Uncle Anouche: Francois Jerosme
Running time -- 95 minutes
No MPAA rating...
The drawings themselves are plain, very generalized and almost entirely in black and white. Perhaps Satrapi and Paronnaud feared that, were the animation more vital and realistic, the film would become too cartoonish and vulgar. Perhaps they're right. But as animation "Persepolis" is fairly uninteresting as the facial features do not convey much individuality.
Satrapi's dramatic young life so far has been anything but uninteresting. So the film should attract those interested in women's issues and politics in specialty venues. However, Sony Pictures Classics will have to market hard to reach out to adult moviegoers beyond those categories in North America.
Satrapi -- called Marjane in the film and voiced by Chiara Mastroianni -- is at a Paris airport, thinking back on her life, starting as a child under the Shah. While the country is modernized and Westernized by the Shah, much to the young girl's approval, her family chafe under the dictatorship, which sees family members imprisoned.
The glorious days of the Revolution last only briefly before Islamic Law cracks down on improper -- read: Western -- behavior and fashions. The film wrings wry humor from the black market young Marjane frequents to get tapes of Iron Maiden and cosmetics. During the eight-year war with Iraq, which ground up 1 million lives, the government cracks down further on dissent, executing thousands of political opponents.
Marjane's mom (Catherine Deneuve) and dad (Simon Abkarian) send her to Vienna to study but really to escape as she proves to be "just like her uncle," a rebellious personality jailed by both the Shah and the Mullahs. In Austria, she indulges in western "decadence" -- alcohol, cigarettes and sex. She experiences first love and its disappointment. A second love's bitter aftermath throws her into deep depression and even leaves her homeless for a while.
She begs her parents to let her return to Tehran, but the tyrannical restrictions on women's clothing and all social behavior plunge her into another depression. When she marries her boyfriend so they can be together outside of her house, the marriage is a failure. This brings about her decision to head for Paris and the life of an exile. But freedom has its price.
The film has many wonderful details such as her grandmother (the great Danielle Darrieux), who puts jasmine flowers inside her bra each morning so she will smell sweet and fresh. Or the malevolent security forces filled with young men with abiding hatred for women. Or her nighttime conversations with God and Karl Marx, deities who both fail her at times.
The filmmakers were right to believe that a live-action version of this story would have failed to achieve the universality "Persepolis" does. (In the department of thankfully avoided horrors, Satrapi has disclosed she was even offered a movie that would have starred Jennifer Lopez and Brad Pitt as her parents!) Animation allows any viewer to experience the story not as an exotic tale but as something happening to a person with whom we can readily identify.
PERSEPOLIS
Sony Pictures Classics
2.4.7 Films/France 3 Cinema
Credits:
Screenwriters-directors: Marjane Satrapi, Vincent Paronnaud
Based on the graphic novel by: Marjane Satrapi
Art director: Marc-Anthony Robert, Xavier Rigault
Animation: Marc Jousset, Christian Desmares
Production designer: Marisa Musy
Music: Olivier Bernet
Animation coordinator: Christian Desmares
Editor-compositor: Stephane Roche
Cast:
Marjane: Chiara Mastroianni
Tadji: Catherine Deneuve
Grandmother: Danielle Darrieux
Ebi: Simon Abkarian
Uncle Anouche: Francois Jerosme
Running time -- 95 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 5/24/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.