Ernest & Celestine

Ernest & Celestine (French: Ernest et Célestine) is a 2012 animated comedy-drama film directed by Stéphane Aubier, Vincent Patar and Benjamin Renner. The film is based on a series of children's books of the same name by the Belgian author and illustrator Gabrielle Vincent that were first published in the early 1980s. The film was selected to be screened in the Directors' Fortnight section at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival, as part of the TIFF Kids programme at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival and at the 2013 Hong Kong International Film Festival. It was selected for the grand competition at feature film edition of the 2013 World festival of animated film Animafest Zagreb and was screened as the opening film. The film was released in the United States in 2013 by GKIDS. An English dub was released on 28 February 2014, with the voices of Forest Whitaker, Mackenzie Foy, Lauren Bacall, Paul Giamatti, William H. Macy, Megan Mullally, Nick Offerman and Jeffrey Wright. The film received widespread acclaim, and became the first animated film to win the Magritte Award for Best Film. It was nominated for Best Animated Feature at the 86th Academy Awards, but it lost to Walt Disney Animation Studios' animated musical Frozen. A sequel, entitled Ernest & Celestine: A Trip to Gibberitia, was released in France on 14 December 2022.