Europe’s first 3D CGI feature-length movie, Kaena: The Prophecy started off as a short to promote a videogame. All images © 2003 Xilam Films — Studio Canal — Groupe TVA Inc.

It is easy to see how French director Chris Delaporte came up with a rebellious lead character like Kaena, the 17-year-old heroine for Kaena: The Prophecy, billed as Europe's first 3D CGI feature-length film. The film opened a year ago in France and was released by Samuel Goldwyn and Destination Films to North American audiences on July 9, 2004. In his youth, Delaporte was a rebel of sorts. In fact, his venture into artwork actually began on the wrong side of the law as a tagger, spreading graffiti on the walls of Paris. But that stimulated his interest in painting and drawing. Then, when he bought a computer, he started working on 3D and a new expression developed. He realized that he could use his artwork to tell stories.

His interest quite naturally was drawn to videogames, which is how he first conceived Kaena. According to Delaporte, “It was the only context that let me express myself in the world I liked: fantasy. I was playing around, perhaps, but I really wanted to make a movie.” Eventually, he would get his chance.

Director Chris Delaporte was a tagger on the streets of Paris before he found 3D artwork as an outlet for his artistic impulses.

Kaena: The Prophecy is set on a distant planet, Astrid, a viny, tangled world that has evolved around a hundred-mile tall tree. Some 600 years ago, a Vecarian ship crashed at the base of this planet, and two worlds were born. A Selentine city ruled by an insidious queen (Angelica Houston) and her chamberlain, Voxem, lies near the base. High up in the clouds is a poor village — Thales — whose people feed sap from the dying tree, which they call Axis, to their so-called gods, the Selentines, at the behest of their despotic high priest. The queen hordes the sap in order to fuel her struggle against Vecaanoi, a powerful computer who is the repository of the Vecarians' knowledge.

Compelled by a mysterious force, Kaena (Kirsten Dunst), a rebellious free-spirit, defies the High Priest and her people's beliefs to take a perilous journey through Axis and discover what dark secrets lay beyond the clouds, where the Selenites and the mysterious Vecaanoi dwell. Kaena eventually joins forces with the last living Vecarian, Opaz (Richard Harris), and his Prosthetic worm buddies to battle the Selentine queen.

If you think that sounds like the basis for a videogame, you are absolutely correct. “At first, Patrick (Daher, co-creator) and I worked on a game demo at home for a year, without being paid,” explains Delaporte. “I mainly worked on the story and the world it took place in, and Patrick developed the game system. That's when we met Denis Friedman, who at the time was general director for Sony Computer France. When he left Sony, he set up his own company, Chaman. Like us, Denis believed in complementary media interaction; videogames, feature films, comic albums.”

Once they had locked in on the idea for the videogame and had a demo, the next thing they needed was the money to develop it. In order to do that, they needed a short film to promote their demo. “We had a game demo, but Denis asked us to come up with a two-minute 3D intro, which he used to raise interest in the project. So Denis worked out an overall budget, which today seems almost laughable, because it added up to 18 million francs. For what eventually came to 96 million francs!”

That's approximately U.S. $26 million.