Director Jacques Rémy Girerd and his La Prophétie des Grenouilles (Raining Cats and Frogs) go up against mammoth animation competition in France this winter. All images © Folimage 2002.

This Christmas, French cinemas will witness a rather unusual contest: squaring up to the Goliath that is Finding Nemo (expected to do the same record business as it has elsewhere) is a tiny competitor, La Prophétie des Grenouilles (Raining Cats and Frogs) directed by Jacques Rémy Girerd. It is the first totally French produced animated feature since Le Roi et L’oiseau (The King and Mr. Bird) (1980). It is also the first feature to emerge from the Folimage studio in Valence (an average sized town in the Drôme region, in southern France), which has already produced a number of quality TV series such as Girerd’s Ma Petite Planète Chérie and, through its artist’s residency scheme, Michael Dudok de Wit’s Le Moine et le Poisson/The Monk and the Fish.

However futile it may be to try and compare the two films, and however much the final box office results are a foregone conclusion, the industry as a whole is highly curious to see how this French film, released with far fewer prints than Finding Nemo, will perform.

Girerd kept the characters realistic and the story simple.

There’s already a favorable predisposition toward the film, since recently a section of the national film press has switched from its former condescension towards animation to a more welcoming attitude in general and French animation in particular.

And the studio certainly possesses all the ingredients for a “success story.” Folimage was created from scratch by enthusiastic amateurs, initially with almost no money, and based outside Paris. Learning as they went along, in an area with little cinematic culture, over time they produced a string of successes, an achievement crowned by winning the Cartoon d’Or (1) for L’enfant au Grelot/Charlie’s Christmas, a TV special directed by Girerd and an Oscar for one of the filmmakers from the residency program, Dudok de Wit (who made Le Moine et le Poisson/The Monk and the Fish there).

Throughout this period, Folimage has jealously guarded its specificity, prioritizing personal short films, humanistic television series and a truly impressive diversification of its activities, with a school, the artists’ residency scheme and an annual one-day festival in Valence.

Many are betting on a new “Kirikou effect,” a reference to the Michel Ocelot film that caused a sensation in France before going on to achieve a very honorable international career. The difference today is that everyone is much more conscious of what is at stake, and La Prophétie has received substantially greater public funding, although its budget was relatively quite small.

La Prophétie has arrived, safe and sound, despite the turbulent waves buffeting French film production, following the upheavals at the Vivendi Universal group.

A Children’s Book Comes to Life
La Prophétie des Grenouilles features a small family, Tom and his adoptive parents Ferdinand and Juliette, who are spending the summer holidays with Lili, a girl of Tom’s age. Lili’s parents run a family zoo, the kind of small amusement park, which can still be found along French county roads. Everything takes place in a region whose similarity to southern France is no coincidence.

Lili’s parents have gone off to Africa in search of crocodiles, leaving their daughter in the capable hands of Ferdinand and Juliette, who are also looking after the zoo. It’s summertime, amidst a sweltering heat wave, and there’s something a little strange in this well-ordered little world. Everything’s fun and games, until the day some frogs warn the two children about an impending disaster; another flood is about to happen. When the first thunderclaps are heard, Ferdinand decides to shelter the household in the barn. The ingenious retired sea captain uses a tractor wheel to transform the building into an ark with room for the animals from the zoo.