10 · 30 · 15

Premiere in Mexico of The Little Prince at the 13th FICM

Gabriel Andrade Espinosa , reportero (@gabolonio)

Director Mark Osborne presented the premiere of his latest film The Little Prince at FICM. Other films by the director include The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (2004) and Kung Fu Panda (2008), which was nominated for an Oscar for Best Animated Film. In 1999 he was also nominated for an Oscar for his short film More (1998).

The film, while based on the celebrated work by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, also tells the story of a little girl and her mother who move to a new house. The girl is very serious and mature for her age, which is why she plans to keep studying over vacation. Then she meets the Aviator, an eccentric neighbor who shows her the extraordinary world of the little prince. The girl embarks on a journey in which she rediscovers her childhood and learns that we can only see with the heart: what’s most important is invisible to the eye.

Attending the presentation were director Mark Osborn, accompanied by a stuffed toy fox, film critic Nick Roddick, actress Cecilia Suárez, Alejandro Ramírez Magaña, president of FICM, Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas Batel, vice president of FICM, and Daniela Michel, general director of FICM. Prior to the screening, a commemorative theater seat in honor of Mark Osborne was unveiled. During the presentation and the question and answer session, the following was said:

Nick Roddick on The Little Prince:
“You’re very, very lucky to be the first to see the international screening of this film. It’s a very beautiful film and it’s very moving, but not always for the reasons that you might expect. It’s based on a book by a French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, an aviator, an adventurer, a writer, a poet. It was written in 1943 when he was in exile from France, living in Morocco. So for him this is a story about exile, about being taken away from home. Another theme that runs through that accounts for the fact that it is the third most translated publication in the world, first to be the Bible and the Koran.”

Mark Osborne on the casting of voices:
“I was very lucky because everybody loves the book so I could get a meeting with my dream cast. I never had any other notion who should play the old aviator than Jeff Bridges and it took about nine months to finally get a meeting with him. He didn’t want to work, he was very tired, in between projects and when I met with him we talked for two and a half hours and he fell in love with the project and we actually ended up recording at his house in his own recording studio, which was incredible.”

Mark Osborne on working with Hans Zimmer:
“When I spoke to him about the project, he started by saying, ‘what are you doing to my book?’ I pitched the movie to him and after about 20 minutes he was chain smoking and was like, ‘this is incredible.’ He fell in love with the project. The first two things he said was, ‘I don’t want this to sound like any other film. I don’t want this to sound like a typical animated film. This is not a typical animated film so I want it to sound unique, and I want it to sound French, I want to maintain the feeling of French quality so we can be reminded constantly of the source.’ And after a while he asked, ‘do you know this singer Camile, this French singer?’ He sent me a link, I didn’t know her work, and she’s a truly astonishing artist with such an amazing vocal ability. He said he wanted her to be part of his orchestra; he wanted her to be an instrument. So it was his genius idea and they collaborated together and developed the songs and the sounds that you hear throughout.”

Mark Osborne to a young girl who asked him for advice:
“The best advice I can give you is to really find your voice, find what interests you, pursue what interests you, and it’s really important for you to find something in your work that comes from you. That’s what I’ve discovered that my projects have to come from somewhere deep inside, and in order for it to be meaningful for me, in order for it to be meaningful for an audience, it has to first be meaningful to you. And I was very lucky and very honored to be able to work with such incredible material. It’s not always the case, sometimes you have to start from nothing, and I just say find something you’re interested in, pursue it, find your voice and express it.

Mark Osborne on the audience reaction:
“It was incredible to hear you reacting to the film this evening. It was really quite special. Your reaction is one of the greatest that I’ve had to the film and it makes me so happy to know that you appreciated it and I’m really excited about the film being released here.”