Born on Television
The six stories in the feature originally belonged to Ciné Si, an eight-episode television series created by Michel Ocelot and broadcast on Canal+ in 1989.
Movie
Princes and Princesses
Princes et Princesses
In this episodic animated fantasy from France, an art teacher interprets a series of six fairy tales (each involving a prince or princess) with the help of two precocious students. Princes and Princesses was created using a special style of cutout animation, with black silhouetted characters performing the action against backlit backdrops in striking colors.
Why it's in the Vault
With little more than black paper, light and an extraordinary sense of composition, Michel Ocelot creates an entire cabinet of fairy tales. Princes and Princesses moves effortlessly from ancient Egypt to medieval castles and impossible futures, yet every story feels as though it is being invented before our eyes by children playing in an old theatre. Simple in technique but endlessly elegant, it is the kind of small film that quietly becomes unforgettable.
— Matty, Curator of the Vault
Atmosphere
Enchanting, elegant, playful, dreamlike, timeless
Fairytale wonder
Visual elegance
Playfulness
Romantic enchantment
Contains mild fairy-tale peril, threatening characters and a few moments of stylized danger suitable for a family audience.
Dans les coulisses
Ce qu'on ne voit pas à l'écran
Six Out of Eight
Princes and Princesses selects six Ciné Si stories, leaving Icare and On ne saurait penser à tout outside the theatrical compilation.
Necessity Became a Style
Ocelot later joked that what people regarded as his artistic style was originally the result of having no money. Silhouette animation allowed him to create sophisticated images with extremely modest resources.
A Five-Day Revelation
Ocelot had previously experimented with silhouette work during children's workshops. He recalled that in only five days, children using black paper and scissors produced an unexpectedly polished body of images, convincing him of the technique's potential.
A Festival Life
The feature received the SACD Cinema Prize in 2000 and later won both the children's and adult juries' first prizes for animated feature at the Chicago International Children's Film Festival in 2001.
Aux origines
Ciné Si
Princes and Princesses assembles six stories originally created for Ocelot's eight-part television series Ciné Si, preserving its framing device of a girl, a boy and an elderly technician meeting in an abandoned cinema to research, invent, costume and perform a new tale.
Palette
Les couleurs du film
Silhouette Black#11100F
Royal Gold#D8A83D
Twilight Blue#435B83
Emerald Green#548657
Desert Ochre#C98D43
Fairy-Tale Rose#B95F72
Images
