''The Bears' Famous Invasion of Sicily'', also known as ''The Bears and the Invasion of Sicily'' in the United States (; ), is a 2019

animated Animation is a filmmaking technique whereby image, still images are manipulated to create Motion picture, moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on cel, transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and e ...

adventure film The adventure film is a broad genre of film. Some early genre studies found it no different than the Western film or argued that adventure could encompass all Hollywood genres. Commonality was found among historians Brian Taves and Ian Cameron in ...

directed by

Lorenzo Mattotti Lorenzo Mattotti (born 24 January 1954) is an Italian comics artist and illustrator. His illustrations have been published in magazines such as ''Cosmopolitan (magazine), Cosmopolitan'', ''Vogue (magazine), Vogue'', ''The New Yorker'', ''Le Monde ...

. The screenplay by Mattotti, Jean-Luc Fromental and

Thomas Bidegain Thomas Bidegain is a French screenwriter, producer and film director. He is noted for his collaborations with the director Jacques Audiard. He received the César Award for Best Original Screenplay in 2010 for '' A Prophet'' and Best Adaptation ...

is based on the 1945 Italian children's book '' The Bears' Famous Invasion of Sicily'' by

Dino Buzzati Dino Buzzati-Traverso (; 14 October 1906 – 28 January 1972) was an Italian novelist, short story writer, painter and poet, as well as a journalist for ''Corriere della Sera''. His worldwide fame is mostly due to his novel '' The Tartar St ...

. The film was selected to be screened in the

Un Certain Regard (; 'A Certain Glance') is a section of the Cannes Film Festival's official selection. It is run at the Debussy, parallel to the competition for the . This section was introduced in 1978 by Gilles Jacob. The section presents 20 films with unusua ...

section at the

2019 Cannes Film Festival The 72nd annual Cannes Film Festival took place from 14 to 25 May 2019. Mexican filmmaker Alejandro González Iñárritu served as jury president for the main competition. South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-ho won the , the festival's top prize, fo ...

Pathé Pathé SAS (; styled as PATHÉ!) is a French major film production and distribution company, owning a number of cinema chains through its subsidiary Pathé Cinémas and television networks across Europe. It is the name of a network of Fren ...

distributed the film in France on 9 October 2019 and by BIM Distribuzione in Italy on 7 November 2019. It received critical acclaim.

Plot

While resting in a cave, Almerina and Gedeone are caught by an old bear sleeping in the same cave. To cheer the bear up, Gedeone tells the bear the story of the bears' famous invasion of Sicily. Babbon and Tonio are in the river, Tonio is being taught how to catch a fish when he is suddenly taken away by the river. This leads Babbon to enter a depression, and soon his bear clan is starving. Leonzio suggests that Tonio is among the people in Sicily, and such Babbon leads the bears to Sicily. The bears soon get attacked by the Sicilian army, though it does not take long for them to retreat. Babbon befriends the human magician.

Cast

Production

The film was produced by the French company Prima Linea Productions. It is co-produced with

and

France 3 Cinéma France 3 () is a French free-to-air public television network. The second flagship network of France Télévisions, it broadcasts a wide range of general and specialized programming. France 3 is structured as a regional service with 13 re ...

in France and Indigo Film and

Rai Cinema Rai Cinema S.p.A. is an Italian film production company owned by RAI, the national public broadcaster of Italy. Since its inception, the company has invested nearly €1 billion in the production of over 900 films. History Rai Cinema was forme ...

in Italy. It has a budget of €11 million. It received financial support from

Canal+ Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi). They carry free, calm surface flo ...

and the CNC. It received 375,000 euros from the Ile-de-France region's Support Fund for Film and Audiovisual Technical Industries. The project also won the Gan Foundation's Special Prize for 2016. The visual style is inspired by Buzzati's illustrations but also independent from the original book. The landscapes are inspired by real Mediterranean landscapes with liberties taken in order to create a fairytale-like atmosphere. Mattotti's ambition was to create a timeless visual style so that people who view the film in the future will not be able to see when it was made. The film was in production in November 2016. In a November 2016 interview, Mattotti expected it to be released in two or three years.

Reception

Critical response

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website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

, the film holds an approval rating of based on reviews. Oneofus.net called the movie an "charming experience" and "refreshingly different" giving the adults a strong recommendation to take children see it.

References

External links

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Official website
Animated films about bears French animated feature films Animated films based on children's books Films based on works by Dino Buzzati Films set in Sicily Italian animated feature films Films with screenplays by Thomas Bidegain 2019 films 2010s French animated films Animated films set in Italy Animated films based on Italian novels Rai Cinema films Pathé films {{2010s-animation-film-stub