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.

Grandpa hammers in the last nail of a nice little playhouse that he proudly gives to his grandson. But the Kid finds it a little small, and then... there is a worm in there! "Go get the chick", says the mischievous Grandpa, "he'll take care of it!".

A rabbit and a squirrel, neighbours and good friends, both love food and good company. They nevertheless quarrel over their different tastes. The squirrel moves out during the night and is caught by a fox…

A fisherman and his wife live together happily in their humble dwelling. One day, the man finds a tortoise with a golden shell caught in his nets. The tortoise promises the fisherman that all his wishes will come true if he lets her go free. This touching version of a traditional tale illustrates how greed often gets the better of men and women.

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 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.

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.

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 clever little monkey remembers to keep his wits about him when the bigger monkeys encroach on his bounty of bananas.

Animaton short by Arnaud Demuynck and Cecilia Marum.

A young man opens the window of his attic room and discovers a lunar landscape which submerges him and threatens to imprison him in an eternal sheet of ice. He closes the window to escape this vision and hears from deep inside his soul the sound of a poem being sung.

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.

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?

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...

An inquisitive little frog with a large appetite goes off to discover the river bank in search of new things to eat. On her way, she meets some of the animals that live in the neighbourhood: a mole, a rabbit, a deer, a mouse... and asks them what they eat. Well... what do you think herons, foxes and snakes eat?