Synopsis

Like-minded Ernest, a busking bear, and Célestine, a boho mouse, forge an interspecies friendship and instantly become a cause célèbre in this thoroughly entertaining and slightly demented adaptation of Gabrielle Vincent’s French children’s books. Living in a subterranean labyrinth with her fellow rodents, artsy Célestine is pushed into the stodgy family—well, breed actually—business of dentistry. When making a supply run to the surface one day, she discovers the more liberal lifestyle enjoyed by musician-poet Ernest. After (platonically) shacking up, the kindred spirits are hauled in front of a kangaroo court to defend their friendship.

Benjamin Renner

Benjamin Renner graduated from the School of Fine Arts in Angoulême in 2004. He enrolled at the La Poudrière, where he directed three films. In 2008 he started working on the animated feature film Ernest and Celestine (2012), which won the César Award for Best Feature Film in 2013 and the Academy Award nomination. In the year of 2015, he published a comic book Le Grand Méchant Renard, developing it into a feature-animated film.

Vincent Patar, Stéphane Aubier

Stéphane Aubier and Vincent Patar are both cult favorites and leading names in European animation. The pair met as art students, graduating in 1981 the visual arts academy in Brussels. Their multiple award-winning 20-episode TV series "A Town Called Panic", in which simple plastic toys get into monumental trouble, has been shown the world over.

Two years of work went into the feature film of the same name. Brimming with wry internal logic and a virulent strain of Belgian surrealism, everything they animate overflows with imagination and energy.