Universal Music France, Method Animation Team on Animated Music Anthology ‘Jam’ (EXCLUSIVE)

The 2021 Cannes Film Festival is kicking off!

The Doors’ frontman is buried. Many brought candles and pictures, and some burned incense sticks near his grave as police watched nearby.“Jim and The Doors have been heroes of ours since we were kids.

It’s a loose riff on the Amanda Knox story, basically. A father travels from Oklahoma to France to help his estranged daughter, who is in prison for a murder she claims she didn’t commit.

PARIS — Paris on Saturday was the only place to be for die-hard Jim Morrison fans. Fifty years after his death at age 27, rock music lovers from France and across the world came to the Pere-Lachaise cemetery in eastern Paris where The Doors' frontman is buried.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentMK2, the venerable family-owned film group which operates a leading arthouse multiplex chain in France and Spain, is emerging from the pandemic stronger, cooler and more ambitious than ever.Nathanaël and Elisha Karmitz, who succeeded their father Marin at the helm of the company in 2005, have galvanized the MK2 brand with activities ranging from films, art, publishing, technology and lifestyle.

Rockstar owners Take-Two Interactive has acquired Dynamixyz, a facial animation studio based in France.Founded in 2010, Dynamixyz is made up of 15 employees with more than 40 years of combined experience in the field.

The 74th Cannes Film Festival unveiled its jury which includes five women; a majority in the nine-person group including President Spike Lee.

French media giant Vivendi has reached a deal to sell a 10% stake in Universal Music Group to hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square in a deal that values the music company at more than $42 billion.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentFrance’s public broadcaster France Televisions confirmed its status as one of Europe’s biggest financiers of animation during the Annecy festival where it unveiled its wide-ranging slate during a press conference. In 2020, which was marked by the pandemic and two lockdowns, the broadcaster invested 32 million euros in productions of French animated content, 2.3 million euros of which went into films.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentUgo Bienvenu (aka Ugo), the popular French illustrator and comics author of “Préférence système,” is partnering up with veteran producer Valerie Schermann (“The Red Turtle,” “Paris, 13th District”) on his animated feature debut “Arco.”An ambitious science-fiction film, “Arco” is being co-developed and co-produced by Remembers, the outfit launched by Bienvenu and Félix de Givry, and Schermann at Akaba.

Ben Croll Speaking before a rapt audience at the Annecy Film Festival on Friday, director Pierre Földes, producers Tanguy Olivier and Emmanuel-Alain Raynal, and artists from France’s Miyu Productions premiered work in progress footage from Földes’ “Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman,” a 2D animated adaptation of a handful of Haruki Murakami stories that looks to translate the Japanese author’s idiosyncratic style as no feature has to date.Murakami’s is a world of sex, surrealism and cigarettes, a

Emilio Mayorga Spain’s Mago Production will produce the animated TV series “Polinopolis” in co-production with France’s Godo Films and Mexico’s Apapacho Films. Barcelona-based Goldbee will handle international sales.Also co-producing are public broadcasters TVE and TVC in  Spain, as well as Argentine state kids channel Pakapaka, and the Catalan Institute of Cultural Companies (ICEC).

John Hopewell Chief International CorrespondentDidier Brunner – producer of “The Triplets of Belleville,” “The Secret of Kells” and “Ernest and Celestine” – is readying his next production, ’Prends Garde à toi!,’ an adaptation of the ‘Carmen’ story led by one of France’s freest creative spirits: Sébastien Laudenbach.Laudenbach’s feature debut, “The Girl Without Hands,” an adaptation of a Brothers Grimm fairy tale, was acquired by Gkids for North American distribution.