Panique au Village / A Town Called Panic

The giddy, chaotic pace in Stéphane Aubier and Vincent Patar’s first feature, a marvelous fantasia made using meticulously detailed stop-motion animation and a cast of 1,500 plastic-toy figures, never lets up for a second. Gleefully defying all logic, A Town Called Panic finds its heroes, Horse, Cowboy, and Indian, living together harmoniously, with Horse partial to taking long, soapy hot showers. After a gaffe involving an order of 50 million bricks mistakenly placed online, the trio travels to the center of the Earth, the frozen tundra (where they must battle an evil giant-robot penguin), and a mysterious underwater universe. During their far-flung adventures, incurable romantic Horse tries to impress an orange-maned mare, Madame Longrée, the town’s devoted music teacher. Seemingly inspired by the manic energy of the Marx brothers and old Warner Bros. cartoons, A Town Called Panic, which originated as a cult-favorite TV show, is ultimately in a class of its own, its playful, nonstop anarchy bound to appeal to children and adults alike.

(Stéphane Aubier & Vincent Patar, 2009, 75 min, 35mm)

The Tournées Festival of New French Cinema
January 7-February 4, 2011
For the third winter, the FSC and France Chicago Center partner to bring a series of contemporary French films to campus. This year, spend five Friday evenings with the films of innovative directors whose work represents the best of French cinema today.