France

Synopsis

12-year-old Adama lives in a remote West African village. Beyond the cliffs lies the World of
Wind, where the Nassaras reign.
One night his older brother Samba disappears.
Defying the village elders, Adama decides to set off in search of him. With the steadfast
determination of a child coming of age, he embarks on a quest that takes him over the seas,
to the North, to the frontline of the First World War.
The year is 1916.

Synopsis

We live in a part of Paris where illegal immigrants come from Lampedusa and camp in the streets. Not an area recommended by guidebooks, yet it is where different communities mix outside the apartment blocks.
From a mixed culture, a combination of a French upbringing and teen years shaped by hip hop, we had to go South to understand just how influenced we had been by the heritage of African culture and how deeply our artistic roots lay in a song that had crossed the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, giving birth to gospel, blues, reggae and rap before turning into explosions of paint on the walls of New York, then of Paris.
Profoundly affected by our experiences in Africa, we immediately agreed that the notions of looking, initiation and encounters were central. An encounter between two worlds: Africa and Europe; magic and hyperrealism; tradition and modernism. We wanted to imagine this subjective, mystical view of a world on the road to ruin.
ADAMA is an invitation to see through new eyes a chapter in history we think we know. A deeply subjective inverted fable. An exploration by a child from "somewhere else" of our sick and self-destructive world which it attempts to re-enchant through poetry and magic.
Like an initiatory trance, the film recounts Adama's coming of age and reveals how he discovers his uniqueness, his identity, but also what connects him to everyone else, his very humanity.
ADAMA is set in a specific period - the First World War - but it is not an historical film. It is a tale which along the way turns into an historical account. What is important for us is the contemporary resonance of Adama's adventure. We know animation has the ability to connect audiences with the character's innermost being, to make perceptible Adama's changing view of the world, a world at war, which eventually gave rise to today's society.

Links / Reference

SIMON ROUBY
Born in 1980, Simon Rouby started out a spray can in hand before moving on to other art forms such as sculpture and painting. He studied filmmaking first at Les Gobelins art school, Paris, then at Calarts, Los Angeles. His films have been selected for many international festivals including Cannes, Clermont, San Diego, Bucharest, Ottawa and Taiwan.

INTERVIEW with Simon Rouby
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Cast & Crew

Directed by: Simon Rouby

Written by: Julien Lilti, Simon Rouby

Produced by: Séverine Lathuillière, Daniel Goudineau, Azmina Goulamaly, Alain Séraphine, Lucien Chemla, Philippe Aigle

Original Score: Pablo Pico

Animation: Pierre Ducos, Bénédicte Galup

Nominations and Awards

  • European Animated Feature Film 2015