French animation

The history of French animation is one of the longest in the world, as France has created some of the earliest animated films dating back to the late 19th century, and invented many of the foundational technologies of early animation.

The first pictured movie was from Frenchman Émile Reynaud, who created the praxinoscope, an advanced successor to the zoetrope that could project animated films up to 16 frames long, and films of about 500~600 pictures, projected on its own Théâtre Optique at Musée Grévin in Paris, France, on 28 October 1892.

Émile Cohl (1857–1938) created what is most likely the first real animated cartoon to be drawn on paper, Fantasmagorie in 1908.

Une Nuit sur le Mont Chauve (Night on Bald Mountain), 1933, directed by. Animated entirely using the pinscreen apparatus, a device invented by Alexieff and Parker that gives the impression of animated engravings.

Le Roman by Renart (The Tale of the Fox), 1930/1937, directed by Ladislas Starevich. The first French animated feature film. The animation was finished in 1930 but a soundtrack was only added in 1937, and it was a German one. A French-language version was released in 1941.

La Demoiselle and le violoncelliste (The Girl and the Cellist), 1965, directed by Jean-François Laguionie. Laguionie's first film, which won the Annecy Grand Prix in 1965.

1967 saw the release of Astérix le Gaulois (Asterix the Gaul), directed by Ray Goossens. This was the first movie based on the long-running Asterix comics; however, it was made without the knowledge of the comics' creators René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo, and is not widely liked by fans. The following year (1968), Goscinny and Uderzo worked with co-director Lee Payant on a sequel, Astérix and Cléopâtre (Asterix and Cleopatra).

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