Digital Frontier Teams Up With France’s Forge Animation To Co-Produce “Windwalkers: Chronicles of the 34th Horde”

Digital Frontier Inc., Japan’s leading CG production studio, has joined hands with the French cross-media animation company Forge Animation to co-produce a full-length stereoscopic CG animated film titled Windwalkers: Chronicles of the 34th Horde.

Shibuya International Co., a media consulting company, serves as a bridge between the two.

The film is directed by Jan Kounen, a critically acclaimed French director known for his Dobermann and Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky, the closing film of the 62nd Cannes International Film Festival. Based on the French sci-fi novel La Horde du Contrevent, Windwalkers is his first animated feature.

The director also created Blueberry, the Secret Experiment, a live-action adaptation of a famous Franco-Belgian comic series.

Digital Frontier has been responsible for CG effects in live-action and animated films, as well as creating TV commercials and drama sequences in videogames.

The company has also participated in the productions of the Summer Wars animated feature and the Gantz live-action film series, in addition to the Yakuza and Metal Gear Solid videogame series.

Digital Frontier has previously created Tekken: Blood Vengeance 3D and Resident Evil: Degeneration full-CG anime adaptations of the popular videogames.

Written by Alain Damasio, La Horde du Contrevent was published in 2004 in France and has won an enthusiastic fan base.

Set in a world overtaken by violent winds, the story follows the 23-member elite 34th Horde whose mission is to get to the “Upper Reaches” to stop the winds.

Japanese film and anime companies have realized the importance of marketing their titles overseas. Co-production projects can be a useful tactic, but not many projects have come to fruition recently.