A Town Called Panic

Colour, 35 mm
Belgium, France, 2009, 75 min
Section: Midnight Screenings

Synopsis

Cowboy, Indian and Horse live in a town called Panic and share a house across from their neighbours, Steven the farmer and his wife Jeanine. The inseparable threesome have all kinds of bizarre adventures which take them, among other places, to the centre of the Earth, the frozen tundra and to a parallel underwater universe inhabited by dishonest creatures with pointy heads. Our heroes are the plastic figures remembered from our childhood whom the inseparable Belgian animating duo bring to life using stop-motion techniques. This eccentric comic charade full of polished, disarming gags, which also draws on the Surrealist legacy, offers an animated spectacle par excellence that literally overwhelmed audiences at the recent Cannes film festival. The feature-length version describing the irresistible antics of the plastic protagonists, which took two years to complete, is based on the award-winning, twenty-part cult television series.

About the director

Stéphane Aubier (b. 1965, Verviers, Belgium) and Vincent Patar (b. 1965, Les Bulles, Belgium) enjoy cult status as leading names in European animation. They met as art students at the School of Visual Arts in Brussels, where they graduated in 1991. To this day they dub themselves Pic Pic André in honour of the little figures created at the start of their careers. This original idea to counter the supremacy of dinosaurs and models of manga comic heroes with animated classic plastic figures was preceded by paper cut-outs and hand-drawn animation. The creative duo also provide comic strips each week for Télé Moustique and L’Express magazines, they have made various music videos for the bands Louise Attaque, Dionysos and Saule et les pleureurs, and also several commercials for a British milk brand.