A Film Screening Curated by Claude Ponti

Come to L’Alliance New York for a free screening of France’s first drawn animated feature in color, The King and the Mockingbird, preceded by a short video introduction by Claude Ponti. Ponti, the renowned French children’s book author who curated this screening, cites the film as a major influence on his work. His picture books, published in English by Elsewhere Editions, will be available for sale and perusal.

The King and the Mockingbird, a collaboration between animator Paul Grimault and writer Jacques Prévert, creates a surreal world where fairy-tale castles and labyrinthine passageways give way to stark industrial landscapes with unexpected mechanical inventions. Alan Scherstuhl of The Village Voice has described the film as “the most swooning and elegant hand-drawn animation masterpiece to climax with a giant robot attack.”