Student Academy Awards Series Part 4: Au Revoir Mon Monde

Au Revoir Mon Monde, dirs. Estelle Bonnardel, Quentin Devred, Baptiste Duchamps, Maxime Foltzer, Florian Maurice, Astrid Novais

On the animation side of the Student Academy Awards we find the film Au Revoir Mon Monde from a team of students at the French school of animation Motion Pictures in Arles (MoPA). The project from which the film came about is a group course starting at the end of the penultimate year of the education and running through to the final presentation in front of a jury after a year's work. Set up to mimic a real studio experience the students work through concept, pre-production, concept art, storyboarding, modeling and all the way through to the final render and presentation.

The team behind Au Revoir Mon Monde consists of Estelle Bonnardel, Quentin Devred, Baptiste Duchamps, Maxime Foltzer, Florian Maurice and Astrid Novais. It played numerous festivals around the world beginning last year with Spark Animation in Vancouver before moving on to Sottodiciotto Film Festival, Animafest Zagreb and Animayo to mention a few.

The film itself seamlessly blends genres, ranging from a world ending action packed epic complete with a majestic score down to a romantic comedy, all in the span of just a smidge over five minutes. We enter with the sushi restaurant mascot Karim, on a smoke break out back as he realizes that a very imminent threat of a meteor shower is about to take down earth as we know it. Leaving the restaurant-turned-ashes in the rear view mirror Karim begins to sprint across the unnamed Toronto-inspired city by any means necessary as the surroundings crumble around him. By running, riding an electric scooter and at one particularly funny shot hooked onto the end of a construction site crane we root for our unlikely hero to make it to the single still standing skyscraper across town before it is too late - all while still being stuck in his blue fish (tuna?) costume of course.

In lieu of any real dialogue, the sound work does a lot of the heavy lifting in conveying emotions and setting tone. In terms of lighting and atmosphere the team borrowed ideas from modern day bigger studios and blockbuster VFX which gives the film a certain pulse and grittiness. Offsetting this through classic 3D animation and bright vivid colors, resulting in a story with a playful tone yet realistic sense of urgency. While naturally much smaller in budget and scope than some of the inspiration behind it the students managed to build rich surroundings and a story which is easy to get directly thrown in the middle of that still tugs at your heartstrings in the final shots.

Review by: Robin Hellgren