12 year-old Adama lives in a remote village in West Africa, sheltered by the cliffs. Out, beyond, lies the land of breaths, the kingdom of wicked spirits hungry for war. When Samba, his elder brother, suddenly vanishes from the village, Adama decides to set off in search of him.
Accompanied first by Abdou, a tragically lucid griot*, then by Maximin, a street urchin who is his own negative twin, he crosses a Europe in the grip of war.
Borne by the energy of desperation and the poetry of childhood, Adama travels to the hell of the frontline in order to free his brother and see his own initiatory journey through.


* A griot is a West African musician, storyteller and tradition warden.

La Réunion / France, 2015, Animation, 1h22'

with the voices of Azize Diabate, Oxmo Puccino, Pascal Nzonzi

Director: Simon ROUBY (France)

Scriptwriter: Julien Lilti (France)

Producer : Philippe Aigle (France)

Film identity
Directed by Simon ROUBY
Country: France
Year of production: 2015
Running time: 01 h 22 min

Technique
Category: Feature film
Techniques used: Powder animation, Special effects, 2D Computer, 3D Computer, Diverse techniques
Process: Colour
Target public: Teens, Adults, Kids, Young adults

script & intention
We work and live in a corner of Paris where the Eiffel Tower is no more than an insignificant shard on an inaccessible horizon. A corner of Paris, where African illegal immigrants arrive from Lampedusa and roam the streets, invisible and lost. A corner, where communities mix at the feet of buildings where tourists never stray.

Children of the 20th century, of hip-hop and graffiti, it took us living in Africa for a few years to understand the extent to which our own culture had been influenced by the continent.

The extent to which our artistic practices were inherited from a song that had crossed the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, becoming Gospel, Blues, Reggae, Rap... before transforming into explosions of paint on the walls of New York or Paris.

Adama is the tale of the reversed, profoundly subjective, exploration of a child from "elsewhere" who has come to our sick and suicidal - but also violently beautiful and at times touching - world.

Envisioned as an initiatory trance, our film recounts Adama's passage into adulthood and how he discovers his own uniqueness, his identity, whilst at the same time touching on the universal, humanity itself.

Adama is set in a specific historical context, but it is not a period piece. What matters to us is how Adama's adventure resonates with contemporary issues. The film is contemporary and will be handled as such both musically and visually. We know that animation can connect us to the infinite inner realms of the character. It will allow us to make the transformation of Adama's view of the world around him visible.

A changing world that will eventually give birth to our own.


Credits
Directed by: Simon ROUBY
Production: Philippe AIGLE (NAIA PRODUCTIONS, Paris, France), Alain Séraphine, Séverine LATHUILLIERE (PIPANGAÏ PRODUCTION, Le Port, Île de la Réunion, France)
Distribution: OCEAN FILMS DISTRIBUTION (Gregory OUANICHE)
Script: Simon Rouby, Julien Lilti
Storyboard: Jeanne Irzenski-Gueye, Louis Tardivier, Davy Durand
Layout: Clément Richard
Sets: Alice Dieudonné, Remi Salmont
Animation: Jeanne Gueye, Romain Vacher, Bénédicte Galup, Gregory Naud
Compositing: Jean-Marc Lepretre, Dimitry Lucy
Music: Pablo Pico
Sound: Yan Volsy
Editing: Jean-Baptiste Alazard
Voice: Azize Diabate, Oxmo Puccino, Pascal Nzonzi

budget & financing
Waltz with Bashir was an independent movie with limited resources and a great ambition. More importantly, it was innovative cinema, using animation not as genre but as a language. This is our inspiration for Adama.
We have not only a very promising director, but also a whole team we developed with some of the images we're presenting at TFL. We've learned how we will make the movie. Our bet is to bring a unique experience to the audience while implementing a production process in Europe based on the amazing skills of a new generation of digital artists. Their culture started in the streets, where the inheritance of Africa is vivid.

They make a lot with few means. Adama is their movie and the film will be made with this spirit. We drastically revised the budget to bring it back to our original target.

We've established a € 2.9M budget, including development and we're convinced by the screen value of the end result.

The combined support of NAIA equity investment, PROCIREP, CNC funding (CNC is supporting the project for more than 15 months) has enabled us to start the financing, as the project is now fully developed. This Fall we will present the developed project to CNC in the AVANCES / RECETTES programme, to 2 Soficas and to CANAL+, who have expressed further interest following our selection at the March 2011 CARTOON MOVIE.

We're currently looking for co-producers in Italy and Germany. In parallel, we're discussing with an International Sales Agent. Berlin 2012 is an important objective for us. The Distribution in the main territory (France) is of course part of our primary focus.

distribution & sales
Adama's culture, and therefore the film's audience, is not specifically French. The 1914 Great War is not the subject of the movie. It is used as a symbolic framework for the violent start of globalization. African culture has spread worldwide, in all arts, especially in music.

For this very reason, there's a link between the story of this young boy and the world's street culture. The audience will hear it and see it.

We will present the project to 5 independent French distributors we have identified, some of which have an international sales arm. We have started to develop pre-marketing Internet tools to bring attention to the movie.

With the exception of one International Sales Agent, we didn't start talks earlier as we had to finalize the script in line with an achievable budget. From March to May 2011, we produced a 5-minute animation and the script was finalized during the summer.

We now consider that we have a solid artistic package to bring to financiers and distributors. Our objective for the 1st Day of Production is April 2012. By this date, we should have closed the financing.

Co-producers
NAIA PRODUCTIONS - PIPANGAÏ - FRANCE 3 CINÉMA - ALBATROS PRODUCTIONS

with the participation of
FRANCE TÉLÉVISIONS, d'OCS, du CNC, de la Région RÉUNION, de la Sofica EDCA.

with the support of Fondation GAN - Wip 2014 Annecy, PROCIREP, Mission du Centenaire.

total production budget - estimation
€ 2.900.000

CONTACT - production company
NAIA Productions
114 rue de Turenne 75003 Paris
+(33) 1 83 56 88 53
philippe.aigle@naia.pro
www.naia.pro


____________________

DE

Der zwölfjährige Adama lebt in einem entlegenen Dorf in Westafrika. Die Welt der Weißen befindet sich auf der anderen Seite der Felsentäler. Als sein Bruder Samba das Dorf verlässt, um Soldat zu werden, folgt er ihm heimlich. Auf einer abenteuerlichen Reise, zunächst mit dem weitsichtigen Griot, dann mit Maximin, dem Straßenjungen, gelangt er nach Europa bis zu den Schlachtfeldern des ersten Weltkrieges im Jahr 1916.

von Simon Rouby

La Réunion / Frankreich, 2015, Animation, 82'