Oct 9
International Film Forum: AVRIL ET LE MONDE TRUNQUE
This one-of-a-kind animated adventure film ushers the viewer into an alternate reality in which the Bonapartes still rule France, electricity was never discovered, trees are a distant memory, and a steam-driven cable car connects Paris to Berlin.
In this dystopic steampunk landscape, scientists have mysteriously disappeared for decades and April Franklin, the brilliant young descendant of a long line of chemists is in danger of being next. With the help of a shady drifter called Julius and her talking cat Darwin, April sets off to find her missing parents, while trying to keep the “invincibility serum” she has developed out of the hands of the imperial police—and those of a nefarious group of intelligent Komodo dragons!
Based on the unmistakable blend of urban grit and historical fantasy found in the drawings of Jacques Tardi, one of France’s most influential graphic novelists of the last half century, April and the Extraordinary World is not only an engrossing, wildly imaginative entertainment for the whole family but a slyly feminist statement, an ode to science, and an earnest plea for world peace. It is also one of the finest showcases for the visionary work being done in contemporary French animation.
DIRECTOR
Christian Desmares & Franck Ekinci