News
French CG Film Summit of the Gods Opens on September 22
posted on by Alex Mateo
Wild Bunch International announced on Thursday that the French CG animated film of Jiro Taniguchi's The Summit of the Gods (Kamigami no Itadaki) manga will open in theaters in France on September 22, one week earlier than was originally scheduled. The company also revealed a poster visual:
The film was originally scheduled to open in French theaters on September 29.
The film screened earlier this month at the Cannes Film Festival as part of the Official Selection.
Patrick Imbert (Ernest & Celestine) directed the film, and Magali Pouzol and Imbert wrote the script with Jean-Charles Ostoréro collaborating. David Coquard-Dassault (Peripheria) was the film's art director. Amine Bouhafa composed the music. Diaphana Distribution is distributing the film in France, while Wild Bunch International has the international rights. Didier Brunner (The Triplets of Belleville, Kirikou and the Sorceress) is producing the film.
When the film was first unveiled in 2015, Eric Valli and Jean-Christophe Roger were listed as directors, with Julianne Films as the film's studio.
Cartoon Brew describes the film as a 2D/3D hybrid.
The manga is itself an adaptation of Baku Yumemakura's novel. The story follows Fukamachi, an avid wilderness photographer who discovers a link to the past in Kathmandu, Nepal. He finds a camera supposedly belonging to George Mallory, a mountaineer who went missing on Mt. Everest. After meeting Habu Joji, a well-known climber with a passionate drive for the mountain, the two set off to uncover a piece of lost history.
The series ran in Shueisha's Business Jump, and European company Fanfare / Ponent Mon publishes the manga in English. Taniguchi passed away on February 11, 2017.
The first volume was nominated for an Ignatz award in 2010, but didn't win. The English translation of the fourth volume was nominated for an Eisner award in 2014. Taniguchi was knighted in France in 2011.
Sources: Wild Bunch's Twitter account via Catsuka's Twitter account
