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French Animation Breaks New Barriers
With 'The Most Precious of Cargoes,' 'Ghost Cat Anzu' and 'Flow,' French filmmakers push against industry apprehensions towards animation.
But if Schermann built a sterling filmography in those ensuing decades – with credits such as “Zarafa,” “Wolfy, the Incredible Secret” and “The Red Turtle” – the stalwart has stepped back from animation in recent years, citing financing difficulties and rising costs among the hurdles keeping French productions from reaching their full potential. To a person, all of the producers who spoke with Variety evoked “The Most Precious of Cargoes” in glowing terms, heralding the title’s Cannes berth as a win for a sector that hasn’t claimed a similar spotlight since 2008’s “Waltz With Bashir” and, more importantly, comparing the film’s Oscar-winning director to the likes of Wes Anderson and Guillermo del Toro. On an industry front, Raynal believes that greater investment from private broadcasters and an amendment to France’s tax credit scheme to strengthen minority co-production would help ease a number of financing woes, while he sees the now-entrenched public esteem for graphic novels (“They’re now on the bedside table of every literary critic in the world,” he memorably puts it) as a touchstone worth applying to cinema as well.
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