News

Disney has released the first teaser trailer for Zootopia 2, the sequel to its Oscar-winning animated movie from 2016. And while the teaser (below) doesn't give too much of the plot away, we do see a mix of new and familiar characters.

Who's who in the voice cast

Jason Bateman returns as the voice of Nick Wilde, a former con-artist fox who joined the Zootopia Police Department. Also back for the sequel are Ginnifer Goodwin as Judy Hopps and Shakira as Gazelle. New additions to the cast include Emmy winner Quinta Brunson as Dr. Fuzzby, Oscar winner Ke Huy Quan as sneaky-snake Gary, and comedian Fortune Feimster as a beaver named Nibbles.

What's the plot?

Judy and Nick find themselves on the twisting trail of a great mystery when Gary De’Snake arrives in Zootopia and turns the animal metropolis upside down. To crack the case, they must go undercover to unexpected new parts of town,...

Exclusive: MetFilm Distribution has acquired UK-Ireland rights to Claude Barras’s Savages, and has scheduled a wide theatrical release for August 1 this summer.

Savages debuted as a Special Screening at Cannes last year, before a festival run that included Annecy, Locarno and BFI London Film Festival.

Set in Borneo, it follows the adventures of Kéria, who takes in a baby orangutan rescued from the palm oil plantation where her father works; and with her cousin Selaï, battles against the planned destruction of their ancestral home in the rainforest.

The film is a Swiss-French-Belgian co-production by Nadasdy Film with Haut et Court and Brussels-based Studio Panique!

A mother’s death set the stage for “My Life as a Zucchini,” the heartsore 2016 Swiss stop-motion that landed director Claude Barras an Oscar nomination for best animated feature. Now, the passing of a different maternal figure at the hands of unscrupulous men ignites the filmmaker’s eco-conscious, anti-colonial follow-up “Savages.” When a female orangutan is killed by loggers on the Indonesian island of Borneo, 11-year-old Kéria (Babette De Coster) and her father Mutang (Benoît Poelvoorde) adopt her adorable offspring and name it Oshi. Kéria becomes immediately protective of the young ape.

“Savages” deems those willing to enact such violence against other living creatures as uncivilized brutes, destroying the Earth for money while Indigenous peoples live in accordance with age-old principles of coexistence with nature. A musical number in Disney’s “Pocahontas” contrasted the same notions. Yet, even if departing from a rather obvious, if timely, environmentalist premise, Barras and...

Out of the 15 films that were named to this year’s Oscars shortlist for Best International Film, major distributors like Netflix backing “Emilia Pérez” and Sony Pictures Classics behind “I’m Still Here” have been huge contributors to the success of those films. Notably, though, one film on the list still doesn’t have U.S. distribution — the Czech Republic submission “Waves.”

With the countless factors involved in bringing a successful Oscar campaign to life — this year, the shortlist of 15 chosen from the 85 countries that submitted films — even making the shortlist, let alone getting nominated, without a theatrical distributor to get the word out beforehand is a major accomplishment.

The “Waves” campaign has been led by MediaPlanPR, an L.A.-based public relations firm specializing in international films. Their past successes include Oscar nominations for “Kon-Tiki,” “Bullhead” and “My Life As a Zucchini.”

Tatiana Detlofson, founder and executive strategist of MediaPlanPR,...

As is typically the case, France was one of the world’s biggest producers of movies in 2024, debuting a nonstop series of French features ranging from internationally acclaimed indies to locally embraced box office hits. Naturally, it’s the former category that tends to make the crossover to us non-local viewers every year, but this past year saw a particular crossover appeal for the films that made waves at home and saw a ripple effect echo across the seas. 2024 saw no shortage of French auteurs (re)staking their claims over the field, as well as fresh faces looking to earn their glory for the first time.

And while some of these names missed the mark, both old and new (Agathe Riedinger), a country like France could never get to its current position as one of Europe’s most consistent exports of cinema without a heavy supply of names eager to create on a yearly basis,...

The U.S.'s largest animation film festival is heading to New York City next month for the 8th edition of Animation First. This year, Animation First will celebrate the medium with seven feature films and five short film programs, with a special focus on Swiss animation. Boasting the East...

Paris-based sales agent Indie Sales has boarded “Maya, Give Me a Title,” a stop-motion project directed by Michel Gondry (“Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”) and narrated by Pierre Niney (“The Count of Monte Cristo”).

The film revolves around Gondry’s long-distance relationship with his daughter. As they live in two different countries, Gondry asks his daughter every evening, “Maya, give me a title.” Based on her answer, he creates a short animated reply in which Maya is the hero. Gondry’s long-time partner, Georges Bermann at Partizan Films, is producing, while The Jokers Films will release it in France.

Besides “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” Gondry’s well known films also include “The Science of Sleep,” “Be Kind Rewind” and more recently “The Book of Solutions.”

Stop-motion has been a personal trademark of the director since his early music videos such as Björk’s “Human Behaviour” and The...

The European Film Academy has revealed the nominations in the animated feature film category of the European Film Awards.

The nominated films are Gints Zilbalodis’ “Flow,” Kristina Dufková’s “Living Large,” Claude Barras’

“Savages,” Isabel Herguera’s “Sultana’s Dream,” and Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal’s “They Shot the Piano Player.”

“Flow” won the main jury and audience awards at Annecy, and the award for original music. It played in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard.

“Sultana’s Dream” won Annecy’s Contrechamp Award, while “Living Large” won the Contrechamp Jury Award.

“Savages” played in competition at Annecy and also screened at Locarno. Barras was Oscar nominated for “My Life as a Courgette.”

Mariscal and Trueba were Oscar nominated for “Chico & Rita.” Trueba’s live-action drama “Belle Epoque” won an Oscar for best foreign-language film.

The committee that decided on the nominations was comprised of representatives of the European Film Academy and Cartoon,...

Five animated features are in the running for the European Film Awards, which take place on December 7 in Lucerne.

The nominees in the category European Animated Feature Film are: Gints Zilbalodis’s Flow, Kristina Dufková’s Living Large, Claude Barras’ Savages, Isabel Herguera’s Sultana’s Dream, and Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal’s They Shot The Piano Player.

Gints Zilbalodis’s second feature Flow centres on an independent cat obliged to seek allies among the animal kingdom after a devastating flood. It premiered in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard and later won four prizes at Annecy including the Competition jury...

The European Film Academy has changed its voting system to allow documentaries and animated films to qualify for the European Film Prize’s top honor, best European film.

The change, announced on Tuesday, will take immediate effect starting from the 37th European Film Awards, which we be held in Lucerne, Switzerland on December 7.

“The aim of this change is to better reflect the fact that documentaries and animated feature films are an essential part of European cinema culture, adding much to its great diversity,” the Academy said in a statement. “Both documentary and animated films come in a plethora of genres, storytelling traditions and narrative forms, for any audience.”

Feature-length documentaries and animated films will be eligible to compete in their respective categories of European documentary and European animated feature film as well as for best European film.

“The decision of the Board of the European Film Academy reflects a...

One chaotic morning, as his mother struggles to concentrate on a work call and his father fumbles breakfast, that Angelo (voiced by Dario Hardouin Spurio), a rowdy young boy with a pronounced rectangular-shaped head and an even bigger imagination, learns his grandmother (Yolande Moreau) has fallen ill with a slim chance of recovery. The life-changing news propels the innocuous French animated feature “Into the Wonderwoods,” which Oscar-nominated artist and filmmaker Vincent Paronnaud (“Persepolis”) adapted from his own 2016 comic book (published under the nom de plume Winshluss) and co-directed with Alexis Ducord (“Zombillenium”).

The mature nature of the inciting incident feels reminiscent of the heart-rending Swiss stop-motion gem “My Life as a Zucchini,” but soon “Wonderwoods” arrives at a familiar, if still charming, place that’s more squarely family-friendly than tonally audacious. To see Grandma before it’s too late, the family travels by car — Angelo has a pair of siblings,...

Now wrapping its fourth edition, the Annecy Animation Festival’s artistic residency program shepherds selected titles on a development odyssey, hosting filmmakers for a three-month stint at Annecy’s Papeteries Image Factory for tailored, individual mentoring sessions related to screenwriting and graphic development.

The program offers those most precious gifts all – time to explore and grounds to experiment.

Once done, the filmmakers can bring their projects to market, while the festival never lets past laureates fall too far out of sight. A graduate of the residency’s inaugural edition in 2021, director Upamanyu Bhattacharyya later brought his feature “Heirloom” to Annecy’s Cannes showcase in 2023 and will launch production this very month.

“We hope the film will be advanced enough for a Wip screening next year,” says Annecy Residency coordinator Géraldine Baché. “And then, of course, for a festival premiere in 2027!”

There are the three new titles Annecy hopes to accompany...

In live-action filmmaking, a continuity error may be very annoying, but is usually straightforward to fix — simply reshoot the scene again. In the painstakingly slow world of stop-motion animation, where seconds of footage can take months to shoot, it can be something of a headache. So when Claude Barras realized that that he’d filmed several segments of his new film, “Savages,” with his lead character, the teen girl Keria, not carrying the rucksack she’d had on earlier in the story, he had a problem.

In the end, and following a lengthy brainstorming session, the addition of a large farting monkey proved to be the perfect solution.

“We decided that the monkey was going to steal the bag and give it back to her,” Barras explains. And while the loud accompanying fart may not appear entirely necessary, it also served a purpose. “We wanted to introduce a bit of humor,...

Stop-motion maestro Claude Barras will back “Ogresse,” a tragicomic musical directed by three-time Grammy winner Cecile McLorin Salvant and Belgian animator Lia Bertels.

Variety can share this first look.

Led by Miyu Productions – the studio behind last year’s Annecy Animation Festival top-winner “Chicken For Linda!” – the upcoming project adapts a stage show vocalist and MacArthur fellow Cecile McLorin Salvant has toured since 2019, marrying Salvant’s jazz stylings with 2D animation from Bertels and stop-motion interludes overseen by Barras’ Lausanne-based Helium Films.

Belgium’s Umedia and Luxemburg’s Melusine Productions (“The Swallows of Kabul”) will co-produce alongside John Carlin, with French distributor Kmbo handling the domestic release.

The so-called murder ballad set to a jazz tempo will hit bittersweet tones as it follows a forest-dwelling ogress, ostracized because of her physical difference and pursued by a young hunter determined to claim her heart in either love or combat. The project...

Eight years after My Life as a Zucchini premiered in Directors’ Fortnight en route to winning two Césars (and nabbing one Oscar nomination), Swiss director Claude Barras returns to Cannes with Savages, an emotionally resonant stop-motion fable that looks at rampant deforestation on the island of Borneo in Southeast Asia.

A tight 87 minutes, Savages wastes no time tossing us directly into the action as pre-treen Kéria and her palm-oil-extractor father witness his employer’s murder of an orangutan. Despite this killing occurring off-screen, it is very distressing. The father-daughter duo act quickly to hide the lone survivor, a baby orangutan, in their bag. With this harrowing opening, Savages relays that the death and destruction at the center of its narrative will not be sugar-coated for children.

This very cute orangutan is named Oshi, due to the sneeze sound he makes, and is primarily an accessory for the 11-year-old Kéria––a...

Swiss animator Claude Barras is to be honoured with the Locarno Kids Award at the 77th edition of the Locarno Film Festival, which runs from August 7-17.

The Locarno Kids Award is given to personalities credited with bringing younger generations to cinema. Barras is behind 2016 hit animation My Life As A Courgette, and will present his latest feature film Sauvages on the Piazza Grande on August 13.

Sauvages recently premiered as a special screening in Cannes and is about an Orangutan fighting to save the forests of Borneo with his friends.

Locarno artistic director Giona A. Nazzaro said: “Claude Barras is...

Oscar-nominated Swiss animator Claude Barras (“My Life as a Zucchini”) will be honored by the Locarno Film Festival with its Locarno Kids Award given to personalities credited with infusing younger generations with a love for cinema.

Barras’ beloved stop-motion film “Life as a Zucchini,” about an orphaned boy who lives in a foster home, played at Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes in 2016, and went on to be nominated for best animated feature at the Oscars and secured distribution in over 50 territories.

Barras’ more recent work “Sauvages,” about an orangutan fighting to save the forests of Borneo with his friends, will travel to Locarno after premiering positively at Cannes earlier this month.

“Sauvages” will play on the prominent Swiss fest’s 8,000-seat Piazza Grande on Aug. 13 with the director in tow.

“Claude Barras is one of the great shapers of the contemporary collective imagination,” said Locarno’s artistic director Giona A. Nazzaro in a statement.

Eight years after his stop-motion breakout debut My Life as a Zucchini, which premiered in the Directors’ Fortnight, Swiss director Claude Barras is back at the Cannes Film Festival this year with Sauvages (Savages).

My Life as a Zucchini was an Academy Award nominee in 2017, and Barras’ new feature is, if anything, even more ambitious. It tells the story of Kéria, an 11-year-old girl who lives with her father, a Swiss ethnologist who now works for a logging company, in the rural suburbs of the province of Sarawak, on the island of Borneo. She’s a typical urban girl, who loves her cell phone, hip-hop music and all things modern. She has largely turned her back on the traditions of her late mother, who was a member of the Penan, a nomadic group of hunter-gatherers whose way of life is threatened by industrial deforestation. But when her father rescues a baby orangutan,...

Films about the ecological stakes of contemporary life often center the results of unfettered human consumption. By showing the abuses suffered by the environment, they function as both an urgent warning and a desperate plea. Claude Barras takes a different route in Savages (Sauvages), his incisive and edifying animated feature about an 11-year-old girl trying to protect her land and people from encroaching deforestation.

Premiering at Cannes, Savages focuses on elemental beauty and the dignity of community-driven preservation. It is the latest film from the Swiss director whose last film My Life as a Zucchini premiered at Cannes in 2016 and went on to critical acclaim and an Oscar nomination. As in that movie, Barras does not condescend to or patronize his youngest audience members. Savages, written by Barras and Catherine Paillé in collaboration with Morgan Navarro and Nancy Huston, is uncompromising in its messaging, deceptively spare in its instruction and absolutely gorgeous to look at.

In this instalment of Screen’s Cannes Close-Up interview series, Louis Balsan – EVP for distribution and acquisitions at production, financing, and sales outfit Anton – shares his insider tips for festival novices, and reveals his most memorable Cannes deal that was closed in the tiny cabin of a yacht.

Balsan is in Cannes with stop-motion animation Savages, from My Life As A Zucchini director Claude Barras, which has its world premiere at the festival.

Attendees should “prioritise films and build the rest of your schedule around that and not the other way around,” says Balsan. “The drinks and all – that’s nice.

The best part of “Savages” is its opening scene, which says less about the overall quality of Claude Barras’ sophomore feature and more about the strength of the vignette that establishes the stop-motion movie’s world. Against atmospheric music, the quote “The world does not belong to us. We borrow it from our children” flashes on screen, followed by images of a lushly rendered clay forest, brimming with life and energy. An adorable baby orangutan is briefly threatened by a small but deadly snake, before being rescued and cared for by his protective mother. Atop a tree, the mother gently breastfeeds her young son, in an idyllic image that is quickly disrupted by the sound of chainsaws, and abruptly, the tree falls to the ground, revealing a construction site filled with lumber and a factory spewing pollution into the air. The title “Savages” comes on screen against this image, and...

Oh, Canada debuting this week on the Croisette is high time to see lesser-seen Schrader on the Criterion Channel, who’ll debut an 11-title series including the likes of Touch, The Canyons, and Patty Hearst, while Old Boyfriends (written with his brother Leonard) and his own “Adventures in Moviegoing” are also programmed. Five films by Jean Grémillon, a rather underappreciated figure of French cinema, will be showing

Series-wise, there’s an appreciation of the synth soundtrack stretching all the way back to 1956’s Forbidden Planet while, naturally, finding its glut of titles in the ’70s and ’80s––Argento and Carpenter, obviously, but also Tarkovsky and Peter Weir. A Prince and restorations of films by Bob Odenkirk, Obayashi, John Greyson, and Jacques Rivette (whose Duelle is a masterpiece of the highest order) make streaming debuts. I Am Cuba, Girlfight, The Royal Tenenbaums, and Dazed and Confused are June’s Criterion Editions.

Cannes isn’t Sundance. The movies on offer aren’t generally genre horror box office surprises or heartwarming indie dramedies, and sometimes they’re not even sure-fire Oscar hopefuls.

But as several sales agents and distributors told us, Cannes is slowly shifting back to being a home for discovery. With the audience now unbothered by subtitles, distributors aren’t just looking for the next “May December” but the next “Anatomy of a Fall.” And when it comes to the package titles on the Marché du Film, buyers are demanding more than the latest Nicolas Cage shark movie.

The sources IndieWire spoke to believe there’s more quality than quantity among this year’s official competition sales titles and the packages being shopped to distributors. And that’s a good thing, even though there are still plenty of hot packages trickling in by the day and buyers already scooping up competition...

Exclusive: Natalie Portman has joined the voice cast for French director Ugo Bienvenu’s upcoming animated feature Arco about a boy who uses rainbows to travel through time and his adventures as he gets stuck in the wrong era.

Portman is also producing with Sophie Mas under their joint Paris and New York banner MountainA with Félix de Givry at Paris-based Remembers.

Taking its cue from the fantasy premise that rainbows are time machines, the movie revolves around 10 year old rainbow-child Arco, who lives in the distant future, 2932.

His maiden journey in his multi-colored suit does not go to plan. He loses control and veers off course to land in a near future, 2075, where Iris, a girl the same age as Arco, witnesses his fall and then makes it her mission to get him home.

Arco

Arco is the first feature for Bienvenu after short films Maman and L’entretien and comic books.

Exclusive: Animation-focused sales company Gebeka International has acquired world sales rights to an upcoming 4K remastered version of Japanese animation director Mamoru Oshii’s 1985 animated feature Angel’s Egg.

Oshii is best known internationally for 1995 breakout Ghost in the Shell and Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence, which world premiered in Competition in Cannes in 2004, and the Patlabor sci-fi franchise.

Angel’s Egg was first released on video by Japanese publishing and media company Tokuma Shoten in 1985, and, with time, it has come to be regarded by anime fans as a masterpiece that holds keys to Oshii’s later works.

The surreal, allegorical work is set against the backdrop of an underwater city and revolves around a young girl who takes scrupulous care of a large egg in the belief it is an angel’s egg. When a boy with a gun arrives in search of a bird he saw in a dream,...

Indie Sales has acquired Japanese director Momoko Seto’s “Dandelion’s Odyssey,” an ecological fable animated by Guionne Leroy (“Toy Story”) and scored by Nicolas Becker (“Sound of Metal”) and Quentin Sirjacq.

Shot from Japan to Iceland, “Dandelion’s Odyssey” is an adventure set in a dystopian world and is reminiscent of “Microcosmos,” with plants and animals as the main characters. The feature boasts a mix of timelapse photography, as well as live-action shooting and 3D animation. Most of the production is being done in France, where Seto is based. Seto is best known for her shorts “Planet A,” “Planet Z” and “Planet ∑,” which played at Locarno and the Berlin Film Festival, respectively.

“Dandelion’s Odyssey” is produced by Miyu Productions and Ecce Films, and co-produced by Arte Cinéma and U Media in Belgium. It received the support of the French Gan Cinema Foundation.

“Dandelion’s Odyssey” follows the journey of four friends,...

The filmmakers of My Life as a Courgette and Persepolis are set to return to the big stage with their latest films as the Cannes Film Festival have pumped in the very last titles for the 2024 edition pumping a pair of animated films in the Screening for Young Audiences section and a quartet of premieres for Cinéma de la Plage section.

Not unlike the spotlight inclusion of Robot Dreams last year, Claude Barras‘ Sauvages! is the tale of 11-year-old Kéria who lives with her father in the rural suburbs of the province of Sarawak, on the island of Borneo.…...

Annecy International Animation Film Festival has unveiled the programme for its 2024 edition, including the Competition line-up and a programme of previews from the major studios.

The 12-strong Official Competition includes Adam Elliot’s Australian feature Memoir Of A Snail, in which Succession star Sarah Snook voices a lonely hoarder of ornamental snails; and stop-motion Savages!, director Claude Barras’ first feature since his Bafta- and Oscar-nominated My Life As A Courgette.

Scroll down for the full Competition line-up

The festival will open with Michel Hazanavicius’ Competition title The Most Precious Of Cargoes, heading to Annecy from its debut in Cannes Competition.

The Annecy International Animation Film Festival has unveiled the line-up for its 2024 edition, running from June 9 to 15. (scroll down for full list of titles and events)

Highlights announced on Thursday include Terry Gilliam as guest of honor to receive an Honorary Cristal and give a masterclass. He joins previously announced honorary guest Wes Anderson.

The main Competition and the Contrechamps sections will showcase 23 new animated features.

Features in the main competition include Oscar-winning director Michel Hazanavicius’ first ever animated feature The Most Precious of Cargoes, which will also open the festival.

The drama follows the fate of baby boy who is thrown from an Auschwitz-bound train by his French-Jewish father. The picture will world premiere first in Competition at the Cannes Film Festival in May.

Other Cannes films in Annecy’s main competition include Un Certain Regard selection Flow by Latvian director Gints Zilbalodis and Ghost Cat Anzu by Japan’s Yoko Kuno,...

From gritty banlieue drama Girlhood to period piece Portrait of a Lady on Fire and animation My Life As a Courgette, the French director’s films never fail to connect eloquently with us

“Does French film-maker Céline Sciamma ever put a foot wrong?” That’s a question I posed in my 2021 Observer review of Petite Maman, a sublime modern fable in which a young girl meets her soulmate – a mirror-image child who appears to be a young incarnation of her mother. The film is an astonishing work, a U-certificate masterpiece for children of all ages, conjuring a magical reality in which characters converse across generational divides in disarmingly matter-of-fact fashion. The time-travelling setup may be fantastical, but there’s nothing fanciful or far-fetched about the emotions the film provokes. On the contrary, Sciamma adopts the magical elements of ghost stories and fairytales to create a down-to-earth coming-of-age parable notable for just how real it feels.

Studio Ghibli, like Western counterparts Disney, Pixar and the UK’s Aardman, is one of the most important animation studios in movie history. Since its first feature film, “Castle in the Sky” in 1986, Studio Ghibli has delivered two dozen thought-provoking tales beautifully rendered in a unique brand of animation. To date, its output has racked up have a lucky seven Oscar bids for Best Animated Feature.

“Spirited Away” was the first Studio Ghibli movie to break into the Academy Awards conversation and did so with aplomb in 2003. It won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature (Miyazaki the recipient) over “Ice Age,” “Lilo & Stitch,” “Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron,” and “Treasure Planet.”

In 2006, Miyazaki was again nominated — this time for “Howl’s Moving Castle” alongside “Corpse Bride” and “Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit,” with the latter movie, an Aardman creation, reigning victorious.

Miyazaki and Suzuki were the nominees...

Cannes’ Marché du Film will take place May 14-22, 2024.

Cannes Film Festival’s Marché du Film has selected Switzerland as country of honour at its 2024 global film market that runs May 14-22 during the annual festival.

Marché du Film will highlight Swiss content and talent across all sections of the market alongside promotion agency Swiss Films, in collaboration with the Swiss Federal Office of Culture and the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation Srg Ssr.

A Swiss delegation will include filmmakers, producers, and industry experts with the aim of nurturing international partnerships, seeking co-production opportunities and boosting projects in development. The country will...

The Cannes Film Market, which runs alongside the festival, has named Switzerland as Country of Honor for the 2024 edition that’s set to run May 14-22.

As part of the tribute, Cannes will highlight Switzerland’s contributions to the audiovisual industry and provide a platform for emerging Swiss talents and projects in development.

The showcase will be organized by the promotion org Swiss Films, in collaboration with the Swiss Federal Office of Culture and the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation Srg Ssr. A delegation of Swiss filmmakers, producers, and industry experts are expected to take part in several key events throughout the market, including those dedicated to fiction and non-fiction feature films, as well as immersive projects and innovation.

Switzerland has consistently ranked in the top ten countries attending the Cannes market. In recent years, the Swiss film industry has expanded and has earned critical acclaim with top European co-productions which...

Switzerland has been named the new country of honor for the upcoming Marché du Film, the 2024 Cannes Film Market, which will run May 14 to 22, 2024.

The small Alpine nation punches above its weight on the international film scene, in large part due to its positioning as an ideal co-production partner, with a skilled, multi-lingual workforce, top-end post-production facilities and competitive state support and tax incentives.

Cross-over successes, including Alice Rohrwacher’s La chimera, an Italian/Swiss/French co-production featuring The Crown star Josh O’Connor as a white-suited tomb raider; Anna Novion’s drama Marguerite’s Theorem, about a brilliant mathematics student (Raw actor Ella Rumpf) who decides to quit university; or Claude Barras’ Swiss-French stop-motion film hit My Life as a Zucchini (2016) point to the breadth and variety of the Swiss industry.

Switzerland is also strongly supportive of its new talent, including first-time director Carmen Jaquier, whose debut feature, Thunder, a period...

Switzerland has been named as the Country of Honor at the 2024 edition of the Cannes Marché du Film, running alongside parent event the Cannes Film Festival from May 14 to 22.

The spotlight is being organized by promotional agency Swiss Films, in collaboration with the Swiss Federal Office of Culture and the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation Srg Ssr.

The Swiss delegation, featuring filmmakers, producers, and industry experts, will participate in the market’s programs dedicated to fiction and non-fiction feature films, as well as immersive projects and innovation.

The Marché du Film noted that Switzerland consistently ranks in the top ten attending countries of the event, partly thanks to the fact that the territory is a major player on the co-production scene.

Productions either led by Switzerland or involving Swiss partners that have made their mark in Cannes include Claude Barras’ stop-motion film My Life as a Zucchini, which world premiered in Directors...

2023 is quickly becoming the year of Michael Fassbender as he begins to return to the spotlight. The actor has had a quiet few years since his last big production, 2019's Dark Phoenix. With the weight of the X-Men franchise behind him, a new chapter begins in the actor's career. Fans are beginning to take notice of Fassbender again as he has starred in two films by two prolific directors.

David Fincher's crime thriller The Killer has Fassbender playing an assassin with a specific routine. Meanwhile, Taika Waititi's sports comedy Next Goal Wins has the actor playing a soccer coach tasked with turning a team of losers into winners. The previously mentioned films showcase Fassbender's range as an actor, and he has an impressive resume to back it up. From X-Men prequels to historical biopics, these are the best films starring the talented Michael Fassbender.

Macbeth is One of...

Since her distinctive, queer period masterpiece, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, was released and immediately recieved accolades from various critics, Céline Sciamma has undeniably captured the attention of many. A talented filmmaker who is just as great of a screenwriter, Sciamma has proven herself to be among the most talented contemporary artists of French cinema, providing audiences with some of the most captivating drama films.

You don’t even need to wait for Blue Eye Samurai to premiere this November 3 to get a sense of how amazing the animated series looks — you just have to check out the trailer. After watching just a glimpse of this series, you might wonder how series creators and writers Michael Green and Amber Noizumi managed to reach that level of artistry. The duo revealed to Collider that French-Canadian animation company Blue Spirit (the same one that did the Oscar-nominated My Life as a Zucchini) was key to answering one fundamental question the team had during production: “What if we made it good?”...

Animation has proven itself to be one of the most timeless and long-lasting art forms in the world of feature-length animation, with some of the most iconic and well-regarded stories of all time coming from animated films. The 2010s as a decade were no exception, and were home to several massively successful and powerful animated stories, from massive studio films like Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse to smaller-scale indie films like My Life as a Zucchini.

Many Lives And Deaths Of Christopher Lee

Abacus Media Rights has pre-sold the feature documentary “The Life and Deaths of Christopher Lee,” to Sky Arts, Sbs Television Australia; to NonStop Entertainment for Scandinavia, Iceland and the Baltics and to Movistar for Spain.

Lee is known as the Dracula character and for transitioning from 1960s Hammer horror films to a distinguished acting career that encompassed James Bond films, the “Star Wars” and “Lord of the Rings” franchises.

Less well-known are his aristocratic Italian roots, a close family connection to James Bond novelist Ian Fleming, Lee’s wartime experiences in the British and Finnish military, post-war Nazi-hunting adventures and a side career as a heavy metal rock singer. As an actor, Lee achieved a Guinness world record for the highest number of screen appearances.

Produced in association with the British Film Institute and Trigger Films by Canal Cat Films, “Life and Deaths...

Céline Sciamma is a French screenwriter and director. In 2019, she released one of her most poignant films about freedom and companionship, Portrait of a Lady on Fire. Beyond her great skills as a director, her talent for writing powerfully moving scripts has been proven time and time again. One of her greatest accomplishments was the story she wrote for the claymation film My Life as a Zucchini. It’s a remarkable story about children in France living in an orphanage, the trauma they’ve faced, and the found family they develop. Don’t let the fact that this is a claymation movie about kids fool you, though. While there are plenty of moments that kids can relate to and enjoy, this movie has a lot more to offer adults. The way that Sciamma develops each of the characters endears them to our hearts and helps audiences understand the thoughts and...

Paris-based company Indie Sales has closed further sales on “Richard the Stork 2,” and expects to sell the last remaining territories during the Cannes Film Market.

The film, also known as “Richard the Stork and the Mystery of the Great Jewel,” is a follow up to “Richard the Stork” (released in North America as “A Stork’s Journey”), which was widely distributed in 155 countries and grossed more than $20 million worldwide.

Indie Sales, which sold Oscar nominee “My Life as a Zucchini” to more than 80 territories, is increasingly focusing on acquiring big budget animation.

The sequel’s recent release in Germany, Austria and Switzerland is reaching 350,000 admissions at the box office to date, exceeding the first film by more than 120,000 admissions. The film is now on release also in Norway and France.

Indie Sales screened the film at the EFM and confirmed deals for Bulgaria (Pro Films), Czech Republic and Slovakia (Forum Films...

Belgium’s Panique!, and Chile’s Pájaro have joined Oscar-nominated Vivemant Lundi! and Spanish collective Terremoto Aie to round out the co-production force behind the animated feature, “Olivia and the Invisible Earthquake.”

Filmax will handle distribution in Spain. Kmbo will handle its domestic release in France. The Gallic distributor is on a roll with strong animation box office performances in France for “Amazing Maurice” and current Ukrainian hit “Mavka: The Forest Song,”

Spearheading the production is Terremoto Aie, which includes Citoplasmas Stop Motion studio, Cornelius Films, and Bígaro Films, all contributing to the feature.

Directed by Irene Iborra, who founded Citoplasmas with Eduard Puertas and Adrian Iborra, the film brings to life the children’s book, “La Pelicula de la vida,” by Maite Carranza. The title sold over 24,000 copies in Spain and has been translated into seven languages. Adding a dash of French talent, artist Morgan Navarro has crafted the character designs.

“My Life As a Zucchini” director Claude Barras has set up his latest stop-motion animated feature, “Savages!”

Production company Gebeka International — a Hildegarde-Goodfellas company formed in 2021 — and production, financing and sales studio Anton are behind the project, which will be written by Barras and Catherine Paille (“Magnetic Beasts”). The project will be shopped to buyers in Cannes next week.

“Savages!” follows the emotional journey of a girl, her father and a rescued baby orangutan. The film has a strong environmental and conservationist message, exploring the crisis of the destruction of rainforests.

An official synopsis for the film reads as follows: “In Borneo, at the edge of the tropical forest, Kéria is given a baby orangutan that has been rescued from the palm oil plantation where her father works. At the same time, Kéria’s younger cousin Selaï comes to live with her and her father as he seeks refuge from...

Gkids has snapped up North American rights to Toei Animation’s film The First Slam Dunk, an adaptation of the hugely popular Takehiko Inoue manga, which Inoue wrote and directed for the screen. The film which has already proven a smash hit in other territories, grossing over $212M globally, will hit theaters in the U.S. and Canada in both its original Japanese language and an all-new English-language dub later this summer.

Marking Inoue’s directorial debut, The First Slam Dunk follows Shohoku High School’s “speedster” point guard, Ryota Miyagi, who always plays with brains and lightning speed, running circles around his opponents while feigning composure. Born and raised in Okinawa, Ryota had a brother who was three years older. And following in the footsteps of his older brother, who was a famous local player from a young age, Ryota also became addicted to basketball.

In his second year of high school,...

Gkids has snapped up North American rights to Keiichi Hara’s Lonely Castle in the Mirror, after serving as the distributor in the territory for his past animated features Summer Days with Coo and Miss Hokusai. The film based on the bestselling novel of the same name by Mizuki Tsujimura, featuring animation from A-1 Pictures, is slated for a theatrical release in both its original Japanese language and an all-new English dub this summer.

Reuniting Hara with collaborators including screenwriter Miho Maruo, composer Harumi Fuuki and artist Ilya Kuvshinov, Lonely Castle in the Mirror follows shy outcast Kokoro, who has been avoiding school for weeks when she discovers a portal in her bedroom mirror. She reaches through and finds herself transported to an enchanting castle where she is joined by six other students. And when a girl in a wolf mask explains that they have been invited to play a game,...

If there's one thing we can take away from modern blockbusters it's that, with rare exceptions, special effects just don't feel "special" anymore.

That's not to say that there aren't beautiful and convincing visual effects being produced in the world of cinema. "Top Gun: Maverick" seamlessly blends real aerial footage with CG recreations, to the extent that it's nearly impossible to tell what was really in front of the camera. "Avatar: The Way of Water," whatever its other flaws may be, is a sumptuous spectacle for the eyes, at once vibrant and colorful and creative.

But what so very many modern visual effects films have in common is that they take imagery that should be astounding for granted, treating the most incredible and impossible things the human mind could devise, and acting like it's just something everyone deals with every day. And the new superhero film "Shazam! Fury of the Gods...

Gkids has snapped up U.S. rights to Ernest & Celestine: A Trip To Gibberitia — the sequel to the acclaimed Ernest & Celestine, which landed a Best Animated Feature Oscar nom in 2014. The decorated producer and distributor of animation, celebrating its 15th anniversary, will put both the original French-language version of Gibberitia and a new English dub in theaters this year.

Related Story Laura Linney Comedy ‘The Miracle Club’ Acquired By Sony Pictures Classics Related Story 'Inu-Oh' Director Masaaki Yuasa On Exploring Undocumented Possibilities For A "Modern Interpretation Of Old Tales" Related Story As The Best Animated Feature Competition Heats Up, Can Netflix Or Another Newcomer Bring Home The Oscar?

Both Ernest & Celestine films are based on the children’s book series by Belgian author-illustrator Gabrielle Vincent. The original helmed by Stéphane Aubier, Vincent Patar and Benjamin Renner examines the unlikely friendship between a bear, Ernest (Lambert Wilson...

Gkids has acquired North American rights to Unicorn Wars — the latest genre-bending animated feature from Goya and Annecy Cristal-winning director Alberto Vázquez (Birdboy: The Forgotten Children) — ahead of its U.S. premiere at Fantastic Fest. The horror-comedy will be released in theaters by Gkids in early 2023, following its domestic release in Spain this fall.

Billed as Bambi meets Apocalypse Now, Unicorn Wars‘ logline is as follows:

For ages, teddy bears have been locked in an ancestral war against their sworn enemy, the unicorns, with the promise that victory will complete the prophecy and usher in a new era. Aggressive, confident teddy bear Bluet and his sensitive, withdrawn brother Tubby could not be more different. As the rigors and humiliation of teddy bear bootcamp turn to the psychedelic horrors of a combat tour in the Magic Forest, their complicated history and increasingly strained relationship will come to determine the fate of the entire war.

Gkids has acquired North American rights to New Gods: Yang Jian, the latest feature from renowned Chinese animation studio Light Chaser Animation. The producer and distributor of award-winning animated features has slated Yang Jian for theatrical release in both its original Mandarin-language form and an all-new English language dub early next year. The deal marks the latest collaboration between Gkids and Light Chaser Animation, following the former’s local distribution of the 2019 feature White Snake.

Helmed by Ji Zhao, New Gods: Yang Jian is the second installment of the studio’s New Gods series of animated action-fantasy epics inspired by Chinese mythological figures, following the 2021 feature New Gods: Nezha Reborn, also directed by Zhao. It picks up 13 years after Yang Jian (known to some as Erlang Shen) imprisoned his sister beneath a mountain, with the once powerful god now scraping by as a penniless bounty hunter.