ADN (Animation Digital Network), Studio La Cachette and Toei Animation teamed at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival to discover Le Collège Noir during a studio focus presentation. The conference will take place on 13 June 2023 from 6 pm to 7:15 pm at Imperial Palace, Salle de la Volière.
The conference is open to students, festival+ and Mifa badgeholders, by reservation. This partnership promises a long and fruitful collaboration featuring talented artists for a variety of future projects.
During the Annecy International Animation Film Festival in June 2022, ADN announced a line-up of new original productions. Among the titles announced were Dreamland (a co-production with Ellipse Animation and La Chouette Compagnie), Lance Dur with Ankama (available since March) and, of course, Le Collège Noir with Studio La Cachette.
ADN and Studio La Cachette met at the beginning of 2022 to discuss Le Collège Noir, a project that was close to their hearts. Studio La Cachette was looking for a partner, and because ADN is first and foremost made up of animation fans with the desire to support animation in all its forms, the platform wanted to bring the series to life. Studio La Cachette is one of the top 2D animation studios in France. The studio has worked on many major projects, such as Mune: The Guardian of the Moon, Love Death + Robots and more recently Star Wars: Visions. The studio also contributed to Le Royaume, a short film available on ADN.
Le Collège Noir is an adaptation of Ulysse Malassagne’s comic book (Milan) of the same name. “I was fascinated by the idea of doing with French folklore what Japanese artists do so well with their yokai stories. They have this habit of reincorporating them into their modern stories, whereas in France, we are forgetting all our rural folklore. Le Collège Noir was created as a response to this observation,” said Malassagne.
This series has everything including action, adventure, comedy, horror. As Le Collège Noir combines the Japanese-inspired aesthetic of the series’ universe and characters with a context of adventure and folklore that is totally French, it made sense for a new partner to join the project – Toei Animation.
“Meeting with the members of Studio La Cachette and ADN, who both have a deep knowledge of Japanese animation, was decisive,” explained Toei Animation senior producer Yosuke Asama. “I am very happy to be able to work here in France with a company that has the same ambitions as Toei Animation. Le Collège Noir will undoubtedly be among our most memorable and entertaining works. I hope you will be as excited as I am to see the final result.”
Toei Animation’s participation will enable this multicultural Franco-Japanese collaboration to be exported internationally in the near future. Through this Le Collège Noir project, ADN hopes to further demonstrate its support and love for animation, as well as to help nurture the independence of French animation studios.
“We have been following La Cachette’s work since its early days and we are happy to finally be able to collaborate with them! Even more so with Toei Animation, a long-standing partner. It’s the perfect combination for a one-of-a-kind project”, said ADN CEO Julien Lemoine.
The summary of the series reads: In a school lost in the middle of the Cantal mountains, five young high school students spend the All Saints’; Day holidays under the supervision of Lena, a moody caretaker. But when the spirit of their missing classmate appears in the middle of the night, the teenagers find themselves confronted with the curse of a wicked witch and the most terrifying creatures in French folklore.
The series will have 6×15 min episodes. Le Collège Noir, that is a part of Annecy International Animation Film Festival will be released on ADN during fall 2023.