Ciné si

Lore & Background

Ciné si was produced across two years starting in 1987, with animation done at La Fabrique in Saint-Laurent-le-Minier during the summer and post-production done in Paris during the intervening winters. It premiered at animation festivals in 1989, receiving critical acclaim and awards for best TV series episode at Annecy and best TV series episode at Ottawa but no commission to create further episodes. The series takes the format of an anthology of fairy tales in which the male and female leads are always portrayed by the same animated 'actors,' the supporting cast being supposedly played by humanoid robots programmed by them. Each story is preceded by a prologue set in a disused movie theater, in which these actor-animators and an old man who is both the projectionist and theater organist think up the story, costumes and music for the play which they then perform.

Reader's Guide

Ciné si is significant as the first of Michel Ocelot's projects to be filmed entirely in silhouette, an aesthetic he continued in 1992's Tales of the Night and later with Dragons et Princesses. Though only eight episodes were made, six were later compiled into the 2000 movie Princes et Princesses, which brought the work wide exposure and acclaim. One episode, 'Icare,' was later included with English subtitles on the French DVD release Les Trésors cachés de Michel Ocelot, while another, 'On ne saurait penser à tout,' remains unavailable for public consumption. The series' retro-futurist aesthetic in one episode was inspired by Yakov Protazanov's Aelita. Ocelot had many more ideas for stories in this format, and three were later made into the TV special Tales of the Night; in 2008 he returned to direct another ten as the television series Bergères et dragons, using computer animation to imitate the silhouette style.

Did You Know?

• The episode 'Prince et princesse' won the Ottawa International Animation Festival award for best TV series episode in 1990.
• No episode of Ciné si was nominated for a César Award.
• The episode 'Le Manteau de la vieille dame' won the Annecy International Animated Film Festival award for best TV series episode in 1991.
• Two episodes, 'Icare' and 'On ne saurait penser à tout,' were not compiled into the movie Princes et princesses.

Silhouette Craft & the Actor-Animator Conceit

Ciné si marked the first time Michel Ocelot committed an entire project to silhouette animation, a visual language he would go on to define his career with. The series was conceived, written, and directed by Ocelot, with animation realised at La Fabrique in Saint-Laurent-le-Minier. Production stretched across two years beginning in 1987, following a distinctive seasonal rhythm: animators worked during the summers in the Provençal village, while post-production took place in Paris through the intervening winters. Beyond its visual style, the series introduced a theatrical conceit that became a signature of Ocelot's work. Every story is preceded by a prologue set in a disused movie theater, where the actor-animators—always the same silhouetted figures playing the male and female leads—collaborate with an elderly man who serves as both projectionist and theater organist to devise the plot, costumes, and music. The supporting cast is framed as humanoid robots programmed by the leads, a metafictional device that blurs the line between puppet and performer and gives the anthology a distinctly stage-play quality.

Festival Triumphs and the Commissioning Dead End

Despite the warmth of festival juries, Ciné si never found a commercial audience during its original 1989 run. The series debuted at animation festivals that year and quickly collected major honors: best anthology series at Annecy, best children's series at Ottawa, and a César Award nomination for best short animated film for the episode La Princesse des diamants. Individual episodes continued to earn recognition in subsequent years—Prince et princesse took the Ottawa best TV series episode prize in 1990, and Le Manteau de la vieille dame won the same category at Annecy in 1991. Yet none of this translated into a green light for additional episodes. Only the initial eight were ever commissioned, a stark contrast to the volume of story ideas Ocelot had already developed for the format. The disconnect between critical praise and broadcast viability effectively shelved the project for over a decade, leaving the silhouette anthology as a cult footnote rather than the ongoing series its creator envisioned.

Revival, Compilation, and the Long Shadow of Kirikou

The series' second life began not through television but through cinema. After the international success of Ocelot's Kirikou and the Sorceress, six of the eight original episodes were re-edited into the 2000 compilation feature Princes et Princesses. This was the first time the stories reached a wide theatrical audience, earning broad acclaim both in France and abroad. The remaining two episodes followed different paths: Icare was later included on the 2008 French DVD release Les Trésors cachés de Michel Ocelot, complete with English subtitles, while On ne saurait penser à tout has never been made available to the public. Ocelot's relationship with the Ciné si format extended well beyond the original run. He carried the silhouette aesthetic and the recurring actor device into the 1992 special Tales of the Night, and even conceived Kirikou and the Sorceress within that same theatrical framework. His long-planned continuation, Dragons et Princesses, returned to the format in full, and in 2008 he directed Bergères et dragons, using computer animation to replicate the hand-drawn silhouette look of the earlier works.

A Global Fairy-Tale Canvas with Post-Modern Twists

The eight episodes of Ciné si span an astonishing range of settings and periods, from the courts of Pharaonic Egypt to a French rococo garden, from medieval northern Europe to Japan in the era of Hokusai, and even to the year 3000. This last episode, La Reine cruelle et le montreur de fabulo, is the series' sole retrofuture entry, borrowing a visual sensibility reminiscent of Yakov Protazanov's silent film Aelita, and features a queen armed with a mega radar and disintegrator ray. Most stories are anchored in a specific country or historical moment, yet all share a post-modern sensibility: trick endings, subverted expectations, and a moral that is always present but never spelled out in dialogue. Le Garçon des figues draws on an ancient Egyptian tale, while Icare retells the familiar Daedalus-and-Icarus myth. The remaining stories are original creations by Ocelot, including La Sorcière, in which an unarmed boy must outwit mechanical monsters guarding a sorceress's fortress, and La Princesse des diamants, where a hero must recover all one hundred and eleven diamonds of a broken necklace to break a curse that has already claimed every prince who tried before him.