12-year-old Adama lives in a remote West African village. Beyond the cliffs lies the World of Wind, where the Nassaras reign.
One night his older brother, Samba, disappears.
Defying the village elders, Adama decides to set off in search of him.
With the steadfast determination of a child coming of age, he embarks on a quest that takes him over the seas, to the North, to the frontline of the First World War.
The year is 1916.

Direction: Simon Rouby

Script: Julien Lilti, Simon Rouby

Production: Philippe Aigle, Séverine Lathuillière, , Daniel Goudineau, Azmina Goulamaly, Lucien Chemla, Alain Séraphine

Animation: Bénédicte Galup, Pierre Ducos

Original Score: Pablo Pico

Cast: Azize Diabate, Pascal Nzonzi, Oxmo Puccino, Jack Mba

Original Title: ADAMA

Original Language: French

Subtitles: English

Film Production Country: France

Website: www.ocean-films.com/adama/

Social Media: fr-fr.facebook.com/adama.lefilm

Statement of the Director/s
We live in a part of Paris where illegal immigrants come from Lampedusa and camp in the streets. Not an area recommended by guidebooks, yet it is where the different
communities mix outside the apartment blocks.
From a mixed culture, a combination of a French upbringing and teen years shaped by hip hop, we had to go South to understand just how influenced we had been by the heritage of African culture and how deeply our artistic roots lay in a song that had crossed the Atlantic and the Mediterranean,
giving birth to gospel, blues, reggae and rap before turning into explosions of paint on the walls of New York, then of Paris.
Profoundly affected by our experiences in Africa, we immediately agreed that the notions of looking, initiation and encounters were central. An encounter between two worlds: Africa and Europe; magic and hyperrealism; tradition and modernism. We wanted to imagine this subjective, mystical view of a world on the road to ruin.
ADAMA is an invitation to see through new eyes a chapter in history we think we know. A deeply subjective inverted fable. An exploration by a child from “somewhere else” of our sick and self-destructive world which it attempts to re-enchant through poetry and magic.
Like an initiatory trance, the film recounts Adama’s coming of age and reveals how he discovers his uniqueness, his identity, but also what connects him to everyone else, his
very humanity.
ADAMA is set in a specific period - the First World War - but it is not an historical film. It is a tale which along the way turns into an historical account. What is important for us
is the contemporary resonance of Adama’s adventure. We know animation has the ability to connect audiences with the
character’s innermost being, to make perceptible Adama’s changing view of the world, a world at war, which eventually gave rise to today’s society.

Biography of the Director/s
Born in 1980, Simon Rouby started out a spray can in hand before moving on to other art forms such as sculpture and painting. He studied Filmmaking first at Les Gobelins art school, Paris, then at Calarts, Los Angeles. His films have been selected for many international festivals including Cannes, Clermont, San Diego, Bucharest, Ottawa and Taiwan.

Filmography:
2007 BLINDSPOT, short
2007 LE PRÉSAGE, short
2010 LA MARCHE, short

Awards Won
Annecy Int'l Animation FF: Gan Foundation Aid for Distribution

World Sales:
Naïa Productions
114, rue de Turenne
Paris, 75003, France
E-Mail: [email protected]
Phone: +33 1 40 09 14 77
Website: http://naia-productions.naia.pro/

Press:
Bossa-Nova
Michel Burstein
32, Bd St Germain
Paris, 75005, France
E-Mail: [email protected]
Phone: +33 1 43 26 26 26
Website: http://www.bossa-nova.info/