FANTASTIC PLANET

Excerpt from the film FANTASTIC PLANET. Rene Laloux’s mesmerizing sci-fi classic, based on the book Om en Serie by Stefan Wul, is a landmark of European animation. La Planete Sauvage tells the tale of a race of humanoid creatures called Oms, fighting for their freedom from the giant, blue-skinned Traags, who keep them as pets. A group of rebel Oms travel to a strange planet where they try to uncover the secret of the Traags’ existence. The film, which won the Grand Prix Award at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival, prefigures much of the work of Hayao Miyazaki at Studio Ghibli (Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away) with its palpable political and social concerns, cultivated imagination, and memorable animation techniques. “Laloux’s film is a provocative foray into the psychology of state-sponsored is difficult to watch any scene without being aware of its symbolic and metaphorical potential“ (Senses of Cinema). Rene Laloux---France/Czechoslovakia---1973---72 mins. For more info on this film, please visit Facets Multi-Media is a non-profit media arts organization founded in Chicago in 1975, and dedicated to making cinema accessible to all through film preservation, distribution, presentation, and education. For more information, visit .