Immortel is the biggest vfx movie ever made in Europe. Above, Horus, god of Egypt, rescues Jill from kidnappers. All images © 2004 Telema — TF1 Films Production — Ciby 200 — RF2K — Force Majeure Prods. — Medusa F

If America loves its comic books, Europe cherishes its graphic novels. From Tintin to Asterix to Blake and Mortimer, these large sized, hard cover albums have been to European fans what comics are to Americans — with one major difference: in France, Belgium and other countries, graphic novels are considered a true art form. In fact, influential writers and artists such as Jean "Moebius" Giraud, Edgar P. Jacobs, René Goscinny or Hergé enjoy a fame that goes far beyond the realm of their discipline. Among those is Enki Bilal, a Serbian-born artist whose work in graphic novels and film is considered to be one of the most innovative.

When producer Charles Gassot approached him in 2001 with the idea of adapting La Foire aux Immortels, his most famous graphic novel, for the big screen, Bilal doubted it could be done. His graphic style is indeed unique, rich in bizarre characters and hardly suited for a traditional feature film. However, when Gassot mentioned computer animation, Bilal was hooked: he knew that CGI would allow him to faithfully translate his vision into filmed images.

Set in the year 2095, Immortel tells the tale of an ancient Egyptian god, Horus, who has been sentenced to death by his peers. His last wish is to see once again planet Earth, a world he helped to create. He arrives in Manhattan in a giant pyramid-shaped vessel that floats majestically above the city. But Horus has a hidden agenda. He must find a very unique girl who has the power — unbeknownst to her — to make him immortal. He has seven days to do so…

Manhattan in 2095 becomes a Bilal city. The Eugenics Tower stands on the left.

84 Minutes of Visual Effects
Bilal and Gassot introduced their project to Pascal Herold, co-founder and chairman of Duran Animation Studio, a subsidiary of Duran/Duboi, a major player in visual effects in France (Alien: Resurrection, Asterix and Obelix). Duran had a complete pipeline set up for computer animation: Maya for modeling and animation, LightWave for rendering and proprietary Dutruc for compositing and 2D work. Herold confirmed that the project could be done and that it could be done on budget.

Yet, nothing of this scale had ever been attempted in Europe, even more so in France. "Immortel is, without wanting to sound pretentious, the biggest special effects movie ever made in Europe," proudly boasts visual effects supervisor Jacquemin Piel of the 84-minute feature. "There are 390 shots of full CG animation, 500 shots combining live action and CG animation, plus 280 composite shots." The sheer quantity of visual effects shots was daunting in itself, but the nature of the project made it far more complicated than a "regular" effects movie requiring the same amount of shots. It had to be a Bilal movie. It had to reproduce in moving images these fantastic worlds that the director had been creating on paper for years. "It was a real artistic challenge for us," says Piel. "On a strictly technical level, the main difficulties were combining real actors with CG characters and creating completely computer-generated sequences."