CG "FREE JIMMY" TOO WEIRD FOR CANNES ?

May 6, 2006

"It's mad, it's just completely different," said co-producer Sarah Radclyffe, formerly with Working Title films, about director Christopher Nielsen's new CG animated film "Free Jimmy", set to screen at the Cannes Film Festival, featuring drugs, swearing and what is being touted as the world's first 3D digitally animated sex scene.

The story focuses on a stoned-out circus elephant called Jimmy, continually wasted after being fed uppers and downers by a Russian ringmaster.

With even harder drugs in his system, Jimmy unwittingly becomes the target of deranged animal activists, criminal Lapplanders and trigger-happy Scottish hunters.

Although the live-action, Vancouver-shot "Flesh Gordon Meets the Cosmic Cheerleaders" may take the prize for having the weirdest animated images ever produced for a movie, "No one has seen a film like this", said Radclyffe about "Free Jimmy".

The film has been selected for the closing ceremony of critics' week at Cannes.

"It's almost as if this is going to be the year of adult animation at Cannes," said Radyclyffe.

"Free Jimmy", originally a comic strip before becoming a cult TV series in Norway, started production as a CGI movie in 2000, written by Simon "Shaun of the Dead" fame.

Actor Woody "Cheers" Harrelson voices sleazy lead character 'Roy', Phil Daniels is 'Gaz' and Jim Broadbent plays the drunken ringmaster.

The criminal Lapps are voiced by actors Steve Pemberton, Reece Shearsmith and Mark Gatiss.

'Activists' are voiced by Kyle MacLachlan, Samantha Morton and Emilia Fox.