Following our coverage of the Nigeria Focus MIFA pitching sessions at this year’s Annecy Festival, we’ll now take a look at another of the market’s highlights, the Feature Pitches.
Budget: ,050,000
Le Cœur à danser (The Heart of the Dancer)
Budget: ,000,000
An adaptation of a Georgian short story about the emergence of the first artists and thinkers, Natia Nikolashvili’s Igi looked fascinatingly minimalist. Its straightforward story matches its look, inspired by traditional Chinese paintings in a similar way to Te Wei’s animated short Feeling from Mountain and Water, demonstrating a similar embrace of faded backgrounds and brush-and-ink styling. “Like human history is just about to be painted,” Nikolashvili notes of the white backgrounds.
The quest begins when a young goblin princess realizes her father is a tyrant (played by Gael Garcia Bernal in a rare heel turn for the actor), and has to pick between saving his life or saving the kingdom from his cruel oppression. To help in the decision, she receives guidance from her father’s worst enemy, an alchemist phoenix. With animation produced at Mexico’s studio Cinema Fantasma – vouched for by current Annecy Festival darling Guillermo Del Toro – Ballad of the Phoenix crosses brightly colored puppets with desaturated backgrounds, a striking contrast that suited the presentation’s quirks. Part of the pitch was delivered by those very same puppets after all.
The quest begins when a young goblin princess realizes her father is a tyrant (played by Gael Garcia Bernal in a rare heel turn for the actor), and has to pick between saving his life or saving the kingdom from his cruel oppression. To help in the decision, she receives guidance from her father’s worst enemy, an alchemist phoenix. With animation produced at Mexico’s studio Cinema Fantasma – vouched for by current Annecy Festival darling Guillermo Del Toro – Ballad of the Phoenix crosses brightly colored puppets with desaturated backgrounds, a striking contrast that suited the presentation’s quirks. Part of the pitch was delivered by those very same puppets after all.
The quest begins when a young goblin princess realizes her father is a tyrant (played by Gael Garcia Bernal in a rare heel turn for the actor), and has to pick between saving his life or saving the kingdom from his cruel oppression. To help in the decision, she receives guidance from her father’s worst enemy, an alchemist phoenix. With animation produced at Mexico’s studio Cinema Fantasma – vouched for by current Annecy Festival darling Guillermo Del Toro – Ballad of the Phoenix crosses brightly colored puppets with desaturated backgrounds, a striking contrast that suited the presentation’s quirks. Part of the pitch was delivered by those very same puppets after all.
The quest begins when a young goblin princess realizes her father is a tyrant (played by Gael Garcia Bernal in a rare heel turn for the actor), and has to pick between saving his life or saving the kingdom from his cruel oppression. To help in the decision, she receives guidance from her father’s worst enemy, an alchemist phoenix. With animation produced at Mexico’s studio Cinema Fantasma – vouched for by current Annecy Festival darling Guillermo Del Toro – Ballad of the Phoenix crosses brightly colored puppets with desaturated backgrounds, a striking contrast that suited the presentation’s quirks. Part of the pitch was delivered by those very same puppets after all.
The quest begins when a young goblin princess realizes her father is a tyrant (played by Gael Garcia Bernal in a rare heel turn for the actor), and has to pick between saving his life or saving the kingdom from his cruel oppression. To help in the decision, she receives guidance from her father’s worst enemy, an alchemist phoenix. With animation produced at Mexico’s studio Cinema Fantasma – vouched for by current Annecy Festival darling Guillermo Del Toro – Ballad of the Phoenix crosses brightly colored puppets with desaturated backgrounds, a striking contrast that suited the presentation’s quirks. Part of the pitch was delivered by those very same puppets after all.
Director: Arturo Ambriz, Rodolfo Ambriz
Status: Development
Budget: ,840,000
Looking For: broadcasters, distributors, producers/co-producers
