Charades Sells Cannes & Annecy’s Animated Feature ‘Little Nicholas’ in Key Markets (EXCLUSIVE)

Nick Holdsworth Three years after its last appearance on the French Riviera, the Cannes Lions — the advertising and creative marketing industry’s top international awards — are back June 20-24 for their first post-pandemic physical gathering.As execs and creatives assemble for what is formally known as the Cannes International Festival of Creativity, they’ll confront new priorities facing their business. In the spotlight this year: sustainability, diversity, equity and inclusion, data and technology, business transformation and creative effectiveness.Another new reality: tighter budgets.

Peter Debruge Chief Film CriticEvery time someone takes a comicbook character the world adores and decides to make an animated movie, there’s a risk they won’t do justice to the original designs. “The Adventures of Tintin” comes immediately to mind, since Spielberg and company made the bold choice of swapping artist Hergé’s appealing clean-line designs with appalling performance-capture zombies.

Directors Amandine Fredon and Benjamin Massoubre take home the top prize for their animated film Little Nicholas–Happy as Can Be at the annual Annecy International Animation Film Festival in France. 

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent“Little Nicholas – Happy As Can Be” scooped this year’s Annecy Animation Festival’s top Cristal Award for best feature in a 20 plaudit award adjudication which also saw Wes Anderson win a Jury Award for best commissioned film.The biggest winners at Annecy this year, however, was the Festival itself, animation at large and, when it came to movie prizes, France in particular.Directed by Benjamin Massoubre and Amandine Fredon, Annecy’s top feature winner is classic French animated feature fare in artistic and industrial terms: 2D, based on a literal source – writer René Goscinny and illustrator Jean-Jacques Sempé’s comic-strip, and featuring large Gallic IP: Little Nicholas, France’s quintessential schoolboy, who here meets his makers, Goscinny and Sempé. Produced by Aton Soumache, one of the dominant figures on France’s animation scene and producer of “The Little Prince,” France’s biggest movie export in 2015, “Little Nicholas” may look exquisite at times, but, family fare, packs a more modern pace and focus on entertaining than much arthouse 2D cinema.The top Cristal for “Little Nicholas” surprised some.

Director Nicholas Stoller is one of the more prolific modern comedic filmmakers, having helmed pics such as “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” “Get Him To The Greek,” “The Five-Year Engagement,” “Neighbors,” “Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising,” and the upcoming Judd Apatow-produced “Bros” that stars/co-written by Billy Eichner.

EXCLUSIVE: London and Paris-based production and sales company Film Constellation has inked pre-sales on family adventure animation The Last Dinosaur following its Cannes market launch.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent“The Black Pharaoh, the Savage and the Princess,” BAFTA-winning French director Michel Ocelot (“Kirikou and the Sorceress”)’s anticipated new animated feature, has been sold by Paris-based Playtime to major territories. The colorful film is playing at this week’s Annecy International Animation Film Festival where Ocelot is the recipient of the Honorary Cristal Award paying tribute to his laureled career.

Marta Balaga France’s Annecy Intl. Animation Film Festival is celebrating Swiss animation – which marked its 100th anniversary back in 2021 – with a slew of retrospectives, screenings and special events.In its Official Selection, Switzerland is represented through 13 films spread across different sections.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentKinology (“Annette”) has closed a raft of deals on two highlights from its slate, “Argonuts,” an animated feature produced by TAT Productions, the banner behind “The Jungle Bunch,” and Emmanuel Mouret’s “Diary of a Fleeting Affair” which premiered at Cannes. A Pixar/Dreamworks-style family film, “Argonuts” is a comedy adventure set in a magical yet hostile world of Greek mythology. It follows the journey of Pathie, a young, smart and daring mouse, and her mate Sam who set off to fight the most bizarre and dangerous creatures in Ancient Greece, including Poseidon himself.“Argonuts” reunites “The Jungle Bunch” director, David Alaux, and producer, Jean-François Tosti at TAT Productions.

Batman is heading to Mexico.

Anna Marie de la Fuente HBO Max Latin America has unveiled a new take on the Dark Knight in the upcoming animation feature “Batman Azteca: Choque de Imperios” (“Aztec Batman: Clash of Empires”) in the first ever collaboration between Warner Bros. Animation, Particular Crowd, Mexico’s Anima and “Book of Life” producer Chatrone.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentCharades (“I Lost My Body”) has boarded “Clara Wants Some Chicken,” an animated feature directed by Chiara Malta and Sébastien Laudenbach (“The Girl Without Hands”) in the run up to this week’s Annecy Animation Festival.Produced by Dolcevita Films (“A Son”) and Miyu Productions (“Plethore de Nords”), “Clara Wants Some Chicken” will be presented in the work-in-progress section at Annecy.Comedy-laced, the animated feature follows a loving mom, Paulette, who feels guilty after unfairly punishing her daughter Linda and would do anything to make it up to her. She sets off to make a chicken with peppers, even though she doesn’t know how to cook.But how will she find a chicken on the day of a general strike? The heartwarming mother-daughter tale also touches on overcoming grief through the plot involving the recent death of the young girl’s father.

star Emma Hernan is proud of her vegan empanadas despite the critics. ET's Denny Directo spoke with Hernan at the MTV Movie & TV Awards: UNSCRIPTED, and she defended her business.Some fans have criticized Hernan's empanadas as being inauthentic, and they've been featured on.

Manori Ravindran International EditorCannes competition title “Pacifiction,” from “Liberté” director Albert Serra, has been acquired for the U.S. by specialty distributors Grasshopper Film and Gratitude Films.Serra won the Un Certain Regard section’s Special Jury Prize in 2019 for “Liberté” and cracked the festival’s official selection this year with “Pacifiction.”The film is set on the French Polynesian island of Tahiti, and centers on the High Commissioner of the Republic and French government official, whose role brings him to navigate both the high-end “establishment” and shady venues where he mingles with the locals.

s’il vous plaît!Over at the French film festival on the Cote d’Azur, which wraps up this weekend, it’s long been popular to give comical and undeserved standing ovations to just about anything that could be feasibly called a film. Next year the Claudes and Claudettes will be hopping to their feet for a dancing toad on TikTok (more deserving, honestly, than Lars von Trier.)The trade publications time these performative participation prizes like they’re Olympic runners.

Broker, starring singer-actress IU, was given a 12-minute standing ovation at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival.Broker, the first-ever Korean-language film by Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda, recently premiered at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival on May 27. Once the screening had concluded, the fil received a 12-minute-long standing ovation from those in-attendance, according to a report from Korean news outlet Edaily.The publication also claimed that the standing ovation began with Cannes Film Festival’s executive director, Thierry Frémaux.

The stars of the new movie Elvis, directed by Baz Luhrmann, stepped out for a press conference and photo call at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival.