Arts & showbiz

With the success of Kirikou et la sorcière, French animated films have acquired real international recognition and now rank first in Europe and third in the world. To such an extent that the American Walt Disney studios are using the talents of French artists to produce part of their cartoons. The story of a successful venture.

"Kirikou is not big, but he is brave!" In the space of a year this song has travelled the world, and the "brave" little African, the hero of Kirikou et la sorcière - a delightful cartoon animated by Michel Ocelot, released in December 1998 - has become the mascot of French animated films. The film has surpassed an audience of one million in France. It is beginning to have a promising career on video (more than 300,000 videos have already been sold at the beginning of the year 2000) and thirty countries have bought it. This is not just a triumph, it is a plebiscite! In Chicago, Kirikou et la sorcière has won a symbolic dual award - from the children’s jury and the parents’ jury. This is the secret of its success and proof that, when a film is good, it can bring several generations together.

All this praise confirms an upturn in French animated films already noted as regards television series, which is now affecting full-length films.

In the wake of Kirikou

The "Film Plan" drawn up by the Minister of Culture, Jack Lang, in the middle of the 1980s (with the aim of encouraging production by helping the studios) is finally bearing fruit. Today, France is at the top of the European animated film market (cartoons, films with puppets or clay models), and in third position on the world market.

French television production reached 375 hours in 1998, forcing back foreign programmes. Japanese programmes, for that matter, have virtually disappeared from the programming of the Hertzian channels. Japan has, on the other hand, reappeared in force on the feature film market with very high-quality films (Porco Rosso, Mon voisin Totoro, Princesse Mononoke).

If the triumph of Kirikou et la sorcière is compared with the success of some of the English films (The Adventures of Wallace and Gromit) or the American (Anastasia, Fourmiz, The Prince of Egypt), it may be claimed that the monopoly of the Disney studios has come to an end. Tarzan is having staggering results, but Disney has seen its market share fall from 95% to 55%. And this competition is healthy because it is a source of emulation.

In France, it seems to have stimulated the entire profession. Between 1990 and 1996, two full-length films at the very most were produced: Robinson et compagnie by Jacques Colombat (1990) and le Monde est un grand Chelem, by Albert Hanan Kaminski (1996). Today, the AFCA1 (French Animated Films Association) has announced that almost eleven projects have put in an advance application against returns to the National Film Centre.

The French animated film industry comprises 50 companies, around 2,000 jobs and skills recognized even by the American studios. The Disney studio has set up a subsidiary in Montreuil, near Paris (Walt Disney Animation France), which employs 70% of French artists and is increasingly involved in the trust’s prestigious feature films. Steven Spielberg came to recruit animators for The Prince of Egypt from the Ecole des Gobelins, a department of the Paris Chamber of Commerce2.

Three studios currently dominate our production industry: La Fabrique, near Montpellier3; Folimage, in Valence4 and Le Pôle Image (the Film Centre), in Angoulême5.

La Fabrique. This was founded by Jean-François Laguionie, a disciple of Paul Grimault (author of the famous le Roi et l’Oiseau, Prix Delluc 1980). In 1965, at the age of 26, Laguionie made a brilliant start with his first short film, la Demoiselle et le Violoncelliste, which was immediately awarded a Grand Prix at the Annecy Festival, the largest animated film festival in the world6. Eight short films were to follow. In 1979, tired of working alone, the film-maker brought a small team together in a former mill in the Cévennes, renamed La Fabrique. With a smaller team, he set aside five years to produce his first feature film, Gwen, le livre de sable, which was released in 1984. The film did not attract an audience and La Fabrique then became a regional animation centre concentrating on television series. Michel Ocelot, the future author of Kirikou, stayed on for a while and the reputation of the place spread. To combat the haemorrhage of work seeping out of Europe, La Fabrique teamed up with three studios (one German, one British and one Belgian).

This was the first GEIE (European Economic Interest Group) which would produce top-of-the-range series (such as The Animals of Farthing Wood by Philippe Leclerc). Through the joint production of these three countries, a second feature film emerged, le Château des singes, a pretty humanist tale reminiscent of the spirit of the master, Paul Grimault. Since its release in May 1999, it has attracted an audience of more than 350,000 in France.

Laguionie is now working on a pirate story for another feature film, which he intends to produce at La Fabrique.

Avoiding sub-contracting outside Europe

Folimage: As for Jacques-Rémy Girerd he chose Valence. It was here at the end of the 1970s that, with a passion for clay modelling, he produced short films, which he had distributed in nursery schools. In 1984, he established his studio, Folimage, and threw himself into television production. The result was a series of short films in clay aimed at a young audience. In December 1998, l’Enfant au grelot appeared, a Christmas story that brings the house down, despite its short length (25 minutes). The author has since decided to move on to full-length films. He has just started la Prophétie des grenouilles with a team of more than a hundred people. Here again, the aim is not to sub-contract the drawing and painting to Asia. "L’Enfant au grelot cost 3 million Francs [Euro 457,000, declared Jacques-Rémy Girerd, that is 110,000 Francs [Euro 16,800] a minute. This is the price of our independence. We’ll give it as much time as we need to. But we’ll do it in Valence".

Alongside the Folimage studio, Girerd has just opened a school, La Poudrière. The intention is to train producers in two years4.

Le Pôle Image. The third vital centre of the French animation industry is Angoulême, capital of the comic strip, where an industrial centre has sprung up, entitled Le Pôle Image (the Film Centre). Two hundred animation professionals have joined forces here with the aim of creating bridges between the comic strip, the cartoon and the video game... It was in Angoulême, in the studio des Armateurs, that Kirikou et la sorcière was produced, as was la Vieille Dame aux pigeons, a short film by Sylvain Chomet, Annecy6 Grand Prix of 1998. At the Armateurs studio, Sylvain Chomet is currently preparing his first feature film, les Triplettes de Belleville.

We cannot conclude this overview without mentioning Michel Ocelot again, who is one of its stars. He has just released the montage of a series of six shadow puppet sketches, produced in the past at La Fabrique, under the title of Princes et princesses. And he is preparing his second feature film, which will thrust us into a world of Persian miniatures. ("A story of brothers who are enemies in the15th century", he says). The success of Kirikou (animated by France, Hungary and Latvia) should mean that he will be able to work under the best conditions. As a result, when thinking of French animation we may take up the refrain: "Kirikou, mon ami, has breathed new life into me."

See Label France N. 29.

* 1 Euro = 6.55957 francs.

1* AFCA
53 bis, rue Rodier, 75009 Paris.
Tel.: (33-1) 40 23 08 13.

2* CFT Gobelins
73, boulevard Saint-Marcel, 75013 Paris.
Tel.: (33-1) 40 79 92 79.

3* La Fabrique
rue de la Fabrique, 30440 Saint-Laurent-le-Minier.
Tel.: (33-4) 67 73 63 57.

4* Folimage
6, allée Jean-Bertin, 26000 Valence.
Tel.: (33-4) 75 78 48 68.

La Poudrière
12, allée Jean-Bertin, 26000 Valence.
Tel.: (33-4) 75 82 08 08.

5* Le Pôle Image
1, rue Charente, 16000 Angoulême.
Tel.: (33-5) 45 69 63 00.

6* Festival d’Annecy
6, avenue des Iles. BP 399, 74013 Annecy Cedex.
Tel.: (33-4) 50 10 09 00.

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