Fantoche 2016 to open with Swiss premiere of ‘My Life As A Courgette’
This year’s edition of Swiss animation festival Fantoche will kick off with a national premiere of Ma vie de courgette (My Life as a Courgette) on September 6th. The film, adapted by Céline Sciamma from Gilles Paris’s children’s book Autobiographie d’une courgette, is the first feature from director Claude Barras whose prior filmography includes 2007’s Sainte Barbe and 2009’s Land of the Heads, co-directed with Cédric Louis for the National Film Board of Canada.
Having premiered earlier this year at the Quinzaine des réalisateurs in Cannes, My Life as a Courgette went on to win two major awards – the Feature Film Cristal and Feature Film Audience Award – at this year’s Annecy festival (and was met with standing ovations at both events). It has since been selected by Switzerland for consideration in the Foreign Language category of the 2017 Academy Awards. Read Skwigly’s review of the film here.
The first feature film by Swiss director Claude Barras delighted audiences and film critics at the film festivals in Annecy and Cannes in France. Now it has been submitted as Switzerlands foreign-language Oscar candidate at the 89th Academy Awards. The screenplay by Céline Sciamma is based on the novel “Autobiographie d’une Courgette” by Gilles Paris. It took almost 10 years before the Swiss-French coproduction could be shown on the big screen. On 6th of September 2016 at 7 pm it will finally make its way to Baden for its cinema debut in Switzerland.
The 2016 festival programme of 2016 will present 27 films (out of 1394 submissions from 79 countries) as part of its International Competition (including recent work by Rory Waudby-Tolly, Theodore Ushev and Réka Bucsi) as well as 23 films in the Kids Film Competition, with 22 Swiss-made films competing nationally. New to the festival is its Hors Concours programme that will feature 36 shorts from international directors including Nina Gantz, Michelle Kranot, Franck Dion, and Aidan McAteer. Feature films are also represented at Fantoche, with 14 to screen during the festival including Michaël Dudok de Wit’s The Red Turtle, Ann Marie Fleming’s Window Horses and Alberto Vázquez’s Psychonauts: The Forgotten Children. Other themed programmes include Humanité Animée, comprising of screenings, features, performances and an exhibition reflecting on themes of humanity; Animation Goes Multimedia, offering a look at 360° animation storytelling; retrospectives including Georges Schwizgebel, Queer Animation, Konstantin Bronzit & Friends, Anniversary Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg. and the aquatic-themed Bagno Popolare that takes place at the outdoor Bäderquartier.
The entire programme and the advance sales are now online. Watch the Fantoche trailer, produced by Swiss animation legend Georges Schwizgebel (who won two awards for his film Erlkonig in last year’s Swiss competition) below:
The International Animation Film Festival Fantoche will take place from 6th to 11th of September in Baden, Switzerland.