Francija / France, 2003, 35 mm, barvni / colour, 90'. V francoskem jeziku z angleškimi in slovenskimi podnapisi. / In French language with English and Slovenian subtitles. Film je primeren za otroke. / Suitable for children.
režija / directed by: Jacques-Rémy Girerd
scenarij / script: Jacques-Rémy Girerd, Antoine Lanciaux, Iouri Tcherenkov
likovna podoba / art design: Iouri Tcherenkov, Jean-Loup Felicioli
animacija / animation: Zoia Trofimova, Michael Dudok de Witt, Alain Gagnol, Luis Rego, Jacques Higelin, Romain Bouteille
kamera / photography: Patrick Talleron
montaža / editing: Hervé Guichard
glasba / music: Serge Besset
zvok / sound: Frédéric Attal
glasovi / voices: Michel Piccoli (Ferdinand), Laurentine Milebo (Juliette), Coline Girerd (Lili), Kevin Hervé (Tom), Anouk Grimberg (Želva), Annie Girardot (slonica Denise), Michel Galabru (slon Roger), Jacques Higelin (Lev)
producent / produced by: Folimage (Patrick Eveno, Jacques-Rémy Girerd), Studio Canal, France 2 Cinéma, Rhône-Alpes Cinéma
At the end of the world, on a cosy farm perched at the top of a hill, Tom lives with his loving foster parents: the calm and wise ex-sailor Ferdinand and the temperamental African Juliette. Their neighbours own a small country zoo and Tom is best friends with their daughter Lili. When her parents go on a short trip, they entrust their daughter and the animals to Tom's family. The children are thrilled, but the frog elder soon warns them that they are in grave danger: the frogs predict 40 days of continuous rain. The wind starts blowing and black clouds start gathering. This is the start of an incredible adventure filled with hardship and misery.
Raining cats and frogs is a masterpiece that took 6 years to complete: 2 years writing, 36 months of production - eight to ten seconds of film per day - and one year in post production. The dedicated work of over 200 people is the first feature length film made by the Folimage studio, founded on a meagre budget by Jacques-Rémy Girerd and his fellow enthusiasts.
Biography
Jacques-Rémy Girerd (b. 1952) studied at the Lyon L'école des Beaux-Arts. He worked as a high school professor and teacher at the Grenoble Art School. In 1984 he and a small group of enthusiasts founded the Folimage studio in Valence, which he continues to run to this day. His first animated film Quatre mille images fœtales in 1978 was followed by a decade of creating short stop-motion animations until the 1989 films Amerlock and the César-winning Best Animated Film Le petit cirque de toutes les couleurs. After the birth of his first child in 1988 he focused mainly on directing cartoons for children and started several educational children's series for television: Le bonheur de la vie, Mine de rien, Ma petite planète chérie. In 1997 he creates his featurette L'enfant au grelot, which became hugely popular in the cinemas (300.000 viewers). Afterwards he embarked on his first full-lenght feature La prophétie des grenouilles. He is currently preparing his second feature film Mia et le Migou.
Director's note
"We could never have imagined we would achieve so much either technically or artistically. Such an ambitious project had not been attempted in France since Paul Grimault's The King and the Bird. We had to reinvent everything. It was a great joy, but I must confess things sometimes got tough […]. For me, the toughest thing was never to lose the vital thread of the plot, to retain its initial freshness and always stay at a safe distance from the film so as to remain clear-sighted."
Jacques-Rémy Girerd
Film Comments
"Noah's ark was no picnic, or so claims this delightful film that dares to ask the silly-serious question: If a boat full of animals and humans really were stuck at sea after the end of the world, how long would it be until the animals took over and the lion ate the lamb? Raining Cats and Frogs crackles with the most wonderful things about animation: Simple line drawings are coloured in and glow from within, and talking frogs and arguing elephants address important questions like, How do you live among and get along with different creatures during a scary time? This quirky film has what US animation frequently forgets, that there's beauty in the lines and that true humour and feeling appeal to all ages."
J. Campbell, Mill Valley Film Festival
"The first feature length animation by Jacques-Rémy Girerd is a brilliant success: effortlessly and without patronizing it manages to convey ideas about ecology, love, dictatorship and respect for others."
Philippe Piazzo, Aden
"The story is executed well, but more importantly, even more so than the voices, the music and the rhythm created by the editing, is the graphic appearance that mesmerises with its apparent simplicity and its intricate details."
Jean Roy, L'Humanité
"After Michel Ocelot (Kirikou and the Sorceress) Jacques Remy-Girerd has proven again that it is possible to create a film for the whole family without sacrificing one's artistic ambition."
Christophe Narbonne, Première
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