Les Films du Nord

Yuku is a young mouse who lives with her family in the cellar of a castle. Her grandmother passes on the family values by telling her timeless folk tales. Injured in a tussle with a cat, the old mouse is bedridden and she tells her children that she will have to leave them to follow the little blind mole into the Earth’s tunnels. In one of her grandmother’s storybooks, Yuku learns that the flower of the Himalayas can bring her eternal light. She leaves on a journey of discovery to find the flower.

An excellent example of how sometimes dialogue is not necessary, Totems is a visual display of our inner animal disposition. A lumberjack is working in a forest when a tree falls down and his leg gets stuck. As he is trapped in a beautiful but cruel environment, the despair awakens his primal instincts.

Alfonso, a young squirrel, always has his head in the clouds. He loves watching them and sometimes takes snapshots of them. But cloud-gazing is not always easy. Sometimes, he even has to be really brave.

Zibilla, a young zebra adopted by a couple of horses, is the laughing stock of her new schoolmates. She ends up hating her stripes. When she has her stuffed toy stolen, she takes off without a second thought to look for it and that is where her adventures begin...

A shy young price seeks solace in overeating rather than attempt courtship. Until he begins to suffer from severe stomach pains. A peculiar doctor advises him to drink the waters of a magical spring every day. But it is a thousand leagues from the palace. The prince must go there alone, on foot, otherwise the water will lose its powers to cure him.

A little mouse tries to take shelter inside the trunk of an old tree, when it suddenly scolds her in a gruff, menacing voice. The mouse runs away and meets a squirrel, who disbelievingly scampers up to the tree but soon beats a hasty retreat. A rabbit then a chaffinch receive the same treatment, when finally a tortoise comes along who does not let herself be taken in.

Eliette, an eight-year-old girl, lives in a country where the king banned music. A troubadour from the Orient gets his instruments confiscated there. But he is not inclined to servitude and meets Eliette who secretly carved a flute in a wild reed. Eliette and the troubadour bond of friendship. Together they will lead the people to free themselves from tyranny.

In the depth of winter, two rabbits discover that their store of carrots jam is empty. But nobody has ever said that carrots can only be found in gardens! Certainly not their uncle Robert who has left them a precious treasure map...

Winter is approaching, and the last day of the red-yellow-brown glow of autumn is a good time for the animals in the forest to organize a very special race. Ardently they construct buggies from discarded materials, and as the weather turns frosty, the race is on for the hare, fox, hedgehog, bear, and others. With mutual caring, the forest animals ride toward the finish line and their wintering grounds.

La Fontaine turns filmmaker is a new film from The Cinema Owl. You will remember how last year, Wake Up and Dream Again invited children from 3 to 8 years old to discover some wonderful stories halfway between the world of dreams and the real world! This time The Cinema Owl has brought back from her travels six short films in the form of fables about animals, each with a strong message. La Fontaine turns filmmaker, in the tradition of our cartoon favourites, is both educational and a lot of laughs.

The Big Bad Wolf is back, and firmly intends to resume his usual behaviour. He is disillusioned when he comes upon Little Red Riding Hood, on her way to her Grandmother's, with a tray of cakes. "Things change, you know!", she exclaims. This is indeed what he finds out when he meets Grandma and the gamekeeper.

You have gone, Vasco, you wanted to go far away. But we kept you back, with concrete and kisses, and you tasted the blood of whales. But it was not enough, you wanted to go further, towards the horizon that fascinated you so much. But how far will you go, Vasco?

The history of barbed wire, whose use dates back to the first settlers of the Wild West, always driven by their reckless and ruthless spirit of conquest and selfish ambition to leave their mark on wild lands; of its relationship with politics and mercantilism; of the perversion of the millenary relationship between men and animals; of the evolution of surveillance techniques. Fences and borders: the tragic tale of the enclosure of the world.

Take three animals, in the farm, in the desert and in the jungle. Put them together, although the meeting seems improbable. And you'll have the moral of the tale.

A cute but over-confident wolf cub decides one day that he is big enough to go hunting on his own. He sets out to find a willing prey, but all those he approaches are too big for him... or rather too cunning. This loose adaptation of a Russian children's tale, The Little Wolf is a tongue-in-cheek romp with lots of laughs at the wolfcub's expense.

A little hedgehog finds a magnificent apple in the woods. He rolls it behind a rock where he can enjoy it at his leisure. But there are some uninvited guests at the feast.