Lifetime Achievement Award to Michel Ocelot
Imaginaria is particularly proud to award the Lifetime Achievement Award to French director Michel Ocelot.
Born on the French Riviera, Michel Ocelot spent his childhood in Guinea and grew up in the Loire Valley before settling in Paris. He has dedicated his entire career to animated cinema. From the beginning, all his works were based on his own scripts and graphics. Among his short films, he directed The 3 Inventors (1980 Bafta for Best Animated Film, London), followed by The Legend of the Poor Hunchback (1983 César for Best Animated Short Film, Paris). In 1998, Michel Ocelot made himself known to the general public with the success of his first feature film, Kirikou and the Sorceress. He then made Princes and Princesses, fairy tales in a shadow theater, made with cut-out animation, and Kirikou and the Wild Beasts, co-directed with Bénédicte Galup. Azur et Asmar (2007), his fourth feature film, is another fairy tale set on both sides of the Mediterranean. It was selected for the Directors’ Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival. At the end of 2008, he released a DVD compilation of his short films, “The Hidden Treasures of Michel Ocelot”, his life and work before Kirikou. In July 2011, for the first time in 3D, “Tales of the Night”, another silhouette film, was released. It was the only French feature film to be selected for the main competition of the 61st edition of the prestigious Berlin Film Festival. In 2012, Michel Ocelot finished filming the new adventures of Kirikou, “Kirikou and the Men and Women”. “Dilili in Paris”, set in the Belle Époque, won the 2019 César Award, the highest French film award. His latest feature film, “The Pharaoh, the Savage and the Princess”, which consists of three very different stories, was released in October 2022.
Filmography
Feature films
Kirikù and the witch Karabà (Kirikou et la Sorcière) (1998)
Princes and Princesses (Princes et Princesses) (2000)
Kirikou and the Wild Animals (Kirikou et les Bêtes Sauvages) (2005)
Azur e Asmar (Azur et Asmar) (2006)
Les contes de la nuit (2011)
Kirikou et les hommes et les femmes (2012)
Dilili a Paris (Dilili à Paris) (2018)
The Pharaoh, the Savage and the Princess (Le Pharaon, le Sauvage et la Princesse) (2022)
Medium-length films
Ivan Tsarévitch et la princesse changeante (2016)
Short films
Les trois inventors (1980)
Les filles de l’égalité (1981)
La legend du pauvre bossu (1982)
Les quatre vœux (1987)
Les contes de la nuit (1992)
– Bergère qui danse
– The beautiful girl and the sorcier
– Le prince des joyaux
These shorts, not included in TV series or episodic films, were all re-released in the French-released DVD box set Les trésors cachés de Michel Ocelot.
Television series
Les aventures de Gédéon (1976)
The Insensitive Princess (1984)
Ciné Si (1989)
Dragons and Princesses (2010)
Documentaries
Beyond Oil (1981)
Music videos
Earth Intruders, for Björk (2007)
