The Family Elephant

Rabinova mačka / Le Chat du Rabbin / The Rabbi’s Cat

Script: Joann Sfar, Sandrina Jardel

Art Direction: Joann Sfar, Serge Cicerone, Sébastien D'Abrigeon, Christophe Lourdelet, M. Legall

Animation Direction: Jean-Christophe Dessaint, Marco Nguyen

Cinematography: Jérôme Brézillon

Editing: Maryline Monthieux

Music: Olivier Daviaud

Cast: François Morel, Hafsia Herzi, Maurice Bénichou, Moh-Saïd Fellag, François Damiens, Jean-Pierre Kalfon

Distribution in Slovenia: Francoski inštitut Charles Nodier

Algiers, 1920’s. Rabbi Sfar has more than one problem. His beautiful daughter is becoming a teenager and above all, his parrot-killing cat has just started talking! The delivery of a box from Russia further complicates things when a painter is discovered inside, more dead than alive. He is on a quest for a hidden tribe and its mythical city in Africa. Convinced that the city exists, he sets off on an incredible adventure, taking with him the Rabbi, his cat, a wise old Arab Sheikh and an eccentric Russian billionaire. Sfar’s style and vision carries a universal message of tolerance, in this highly original, beautifully crafted film, celebrating a joyful and multi-colorful return to hand-drawn 2D.

The film is based on volume one, two and five of Sfar's comics series with the same title. Joann Sfar was offered to make an animated cartoon film a number of years ago, but initially declined because he believed that animated cartoons were made for children – or at least, for ‘the child within us.’ He thought that The Rabbi’s Cat should be a film for everyone, even for adults, with real actors that we can sympathize with. After that, 700,000 copies of the book were sold in France; the book was translated for fifteen countries, and he was finally offered to make the real film he had been dreaming of.

In cooperation with Stripburger magazine, the publisher of the newly released Slovenian translation of Sfar’s Pascin