France’s César Nominations Announced: Animated Features and Shorts

Nominations for the 41st annual César Awards, France’s national film award, were announced last Wednesday. The awards have two animation-related categories, for features and shorts, which are open only to French productions.

In the feature film category, three films were nominated: Simon Rouby’s experimental CG/mixed-media film Adama, Mark Osborne’s CG/stop motion hybrid The Little Prince, and Christian Desmares and Franck Ekinci’s hand-drawn steampunk sci-fi April and the Extraordinary World.

Paramount is planning to release The Little Prince in the U.S. next month, while GKIDS has secured North American distribution rights to April and the Extraordinary World for release later this year.

The four nominated shorts were selected from this shortlist of 12 films.

The awards will presented on February 26 at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris. Here’s the list of animation nominees:

Best Animated Film

• Adama
  dir: Simon Rouby
• Le Petit Prince
  dir: Mark Osborne
• Avril Et Le Monde Truqué
  dirs: Christian Desmares, Franck Ekinci

Best Animated Short

• La Nuit Américaine D’Angélique
  dirs: Pierre-Emmanuel Lyet, Joris Clerté
  
• Le Repas Dominical
  dir: Céline Devaux
• Sous Tes Doigts
  dir: Marie-Christine Courtès
• Tigre A La Queue Leu Leu
  dir: Benoît Chieux