Icarus Films announced two new DVD releases this
past week that will be heading home on Apr. 21.
First up is the Distrib Films release of French director
Simon Rouby’s 2015 award-winning animated film, Adama. The film blends stop-motion (or, perhaps, better
described as sculpture motion) with more traditional animation techniques to
tell the story of a 12-year old, living in a remote West African
walled-village, who goes in search of his brother during World War I.
The film, Rouby’s first feature-length production,
opened at the prestigious Annecy International Animation Film Festival in June
of 2015 and then proceeded to work the festival circuit for two solid
years.
It was during this period that Adama was
screened at the New York International Children’s Film Festival and Steve
Kopian, writing for “Unseen Films,” hit the nail right on the head when he
wrote, “The fact that Simon Rouby’s Adama is,
in all probability, going to be largely ignored in the US is a damning
indictment of the way most Americans view animation and of how there is no
market for truly great animated films that are not filled with cute characters,
giant robots or heart-warming feelings.”
If it were not for Icarus Films, as the domestic
distribution partner of France’s Distrib Films, releasing Adama on DVD
this coming Apr. 21, Kopian’s words would be absolutely true. After the two-year long festival run, the
film seemed to have disappeared … it is not filled with cute characters as Adama is
more closely aligned with director Sam Mendes’ 1917 than
the Disney hit, Frozen II.
Adama (voiced by Azize Diabaté Abdoulaye) awakes one
morning to discover that Samba, his older brother (voiced by Jack Mba), has
taken recruitment money and has gone off to join the war that is raging far
away in Europe. His journey to find his
brother takes him from the safety of his walled village (to protect against the
winds) to the battlefields of France and the horrors of Verdun.
It is a remarkable journey and, as Kopian notes that
in the Q & A session that followed the screening of the film, director
Simon Rouby revealed that the animation techniques subtly change as Adama’s
journey progresses. Not only is the
story worth a look-see, but the different animation transitions — other than
“cute characters” — will make this even a more pressing viewing must,
especially for those drawn to the format.
Adama is
presented in French, with English subtitles.
Icarus Films will be teaming up with Bullfrog Films
on Apr. 21 for the DVD release of documentary filmmaker Peter Armstrong’s The
Sequel, a look at the life and work of political
activist, writer and economist David Fleming.
As a lecturer and writer about environmental issues,
he adopted the world view that there will be an eventual collapse of the market
economy and that humankind needs to return to a more holistic relationship with
the world and nature in the aftermath of this collapse.
In addition to discussions about Fleming’s
philosophy, filmmaker Peter Armstrong reaches out to various group’s around the
world who have taken Fleming’s posthumously published book, “Lean Logic: A
Dictionary for the Future and How to Survive It,” to heart.
Interviews include economist Kate Raworth (“Doughnut
Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st Century Economist”), philosopher
Roger Scruton (“Green Philosophy,” “Culture Counts: Faith and Feeling in a
World Besieged,” and more), eco-pioneer, Jonathon Porritt (“Seeing Green:
Politics of Ecology Explained”) and more.
Narration is by Helen Atkinson Wood.
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