Ghost Tracks

In the vestibule of a hospital room, a young boy waits to see his dying mother. The clamor and spiralling movements of bodies around him intensify, forming a grotesque circus—a cacophonous circle that pushes the child back, depriving him of one final touch of his mother's hand. Using rotoscoped drawings suggestive of charcoal sketches, as well as 3D and object animation techniques, The Circus compels viewing with its unsettling realism. Colour is employed metaphorically to subtly express the promise and the memory of maternal affection. Nicolas Brault's highly personal film, suffused with poetic modesty, casts a poignantly sincere gaze on the heartbreak of a child facing the fearful, mysterious experience of his mother's death.

In an uncertain time and place, a group of animated shy rock cubes come out from the anonymity of their quarry to mate. Powerful and indescribable forces made them move towards others in the sky, in a sort of dance that attracts some cubes to others, until those compatible latch on each other and produce a fresh new rock cube.

A futuristic cruise ship with a crew of robots is ready to take its first flight. A boy follows his curious dog on board of the ship, but then the ship takes off. The robots sees the boy as a blind passenger and try to get him off the flying ship.

Gerald is dealing with an unwanted sex change.

On the last day of summer in a small seaside resort town, an older woman named Louise realizes that the last train has departed without her. She finds herself alone in the town, abandoned by everyone. As the weather turns for the worse and with no one to keep her company, louise must rely on her past to help her survive the present.

In 1970s Iran, Marjane 'Marji' Statrapi watches events through her young eyes and her idealistic family of a long dream being fulfilled of the hated Shah's defeat in the Iranian Revolution of 1979. However as Marji grows up, she witnesses first hand how the new Iran, now ruled by Islamic fundamentalists, has become a repressive tyranny on its own.

It is a short film made by Emile Reynaud

Communication is complicated. He tries to talk to her, but she seems unreachable. It’s unimaginable: she’s right on the other side of the table. When she tries to talk, it’s the same. At a time when “communication” is one of the great leitmotifs!

The film is a sub-story to Kirikou and the Sorceress rather than a straight sequel. The movie is set while Kirikou is still a child and Karaba is still a sorceress. Like Princes et princesses and Les Contes de la nuit, it is an anthology film comprising several episodic stories, each of them describing Kirikou's interactions with a different animals. It is however unique among Michel Ocelot's films, not only in that it is co-directed by Bénédicte Galup (who has previously worked with him as an animator) but also for each of the stories being written by a different person (in all other cases, Ocelot has been the sole writer and director of his films).