Archive of films Town Called Panic / Panique au village

Belgium / France
2009, 75 min

Section: Midnight Screenings
Year: 2009

Cowboy, Indian, and Horse are inseparable friends living together in a town called Panic. Evocative of childhood, the plastic figurines are brought to life via stop-motion animation. Full of eccentric gags, their irresistible adventures draw on the heritage of Belgian surrealism. One of the hits of the recent Cannes festival.

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.

Contacts

Coproduction Office
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Asociace českých filmových klubů
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Czech Republic
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E-mail: [email protected]
www: www.acfk.cz

About the film

Color, 35 mm

Section:	Midnight Screenings

Director:	Stéphane Aubier, Vincent Patar
Screenplay:	Stéphane Aubier, Vincent Patar, Vincent Tavier, Guillaume Malandrin
Dir. of Photography:	Jan Vandenbussche
Editor:	Anne-Laure Guégan
Producer:	Philippe Kauffmann, Vincent Tavier
Production:	La Parti Production, Made in Productions, Mélusine Productions, Beast Productions, Gebeka Films, Les Films du Grognon, RTBF
Cast:	Stéphane Aubier, Jeanne Balibar, Véronique Dumont, Bruce Ellison, Frédéric Jannin, Bouli Lanners, Vincent Patar, Benoît Poelvoorde
Contact:	Coproduction Office
Distributor:	Asociace českých filmových klubů

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