Charades Boss Yohann Comte on Why Awards Season Darlings ‘Flow,’ ‘Memoir of a Snail’ Could Represent a Sea Change for Independent Animation Distribution

Jamie Lang

21 January 2025 at 9:11 am·6-min read

French production and sales company Charades started getting involved in animation several years ago, working with films like Mamoru Hosoda’s “Mirai” (2018) and Jérémy Clapin’s “I Lost My Body” (2019), both of which received Oscar nominations. But with Gints Zilbalodis’ Golden Globe best animated feature winner “Flow” and Adam Elliot’s Annecy Cristal winner “Memoir of a Snail,” 2024 stands out as the company’s most successful year yet when it comes to releasing award-winning and profitable animated features.

Both “Flow” and “Memoir” have been omnipresent during this year’s awards season and look like favorites to score Oscar nominations. That would be impressive in any year, but even more so in one in which Disney, Pixar and Dreamworks all released box office hits that have already won the hearts of audiences around the world.

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More than just a pair of indie international features collecting prizes and good reviews, “Flow” and “Memoir” stand out for the fact that both have gotten impressive distribution, especially when compared with similar types of films in the past. Both films got theatrical releases around the world. A far cry from “I Lost My Body’s” straight-to-streaming distribution just a few years ago when it was acquired by Netflix.

Charades CEO Yohann Comte recently spoke with Variety about what makes “Flow” and “Memoir” unique, whether or not their distribution success might represent a turning point for independent animation and why his company has had such an impressive hit rate when it comes to working on animated features.

I think I know the answer, but just to be sure, does Charades do anything different when working with its animated and live-action films?

We don’t consider animation a genre; we think of it as a language. So, our approach isn’t any different from an animated project than it would be with any other film. We tend to work more as an acquisition company than a sales company. We acquire the rights to a project, and then, if we support it properly and put together the right team, marketing, etc., the film will sell. A good sales agent can sell a good film, but a good sales agent probably can’t sell a bad film. We have to be sure to give the filmmakers everything they need to make a good film.

How and when did Charades get involved with these two films? What was it that attracted you to the projects?

Animation takes so much time. We started with these films about four years ago. I recall that “Memoir” was the first. We saw Adam pitching it at the Melbourne Film Festival, and we were shocked to see that after “Mary and Max,” this project was at a financing event looking for funding. So, we started talking about it and trying to come up with every way possible to finance the film. Obviously, doing stop motion during COVID was nearly impossible, but we talked with Adam and found a way to help out with the financing.

With “Flow,” we first found the project on Instagram, if I remember correctly. The script wasn’t as important for that film, as there is no dialogue and the animatic is where more of the story happened. But in both cases, the previous features from the directors played a significant part. At the time, we had done “I Lost My Body,” which was nominated for an Oscar, and we also did “Mirai.” We were getting some credibility as an animation distributor among filmmakers. There also maybe wasn’t as much competition at the time, especially for adult animation.

Do you think that these films are getting such wide theatrical distribution because there is an audience demanding it? Or do sales companies and distributors need to work to create a consistent audience for these kinds of films?

I think that audience still needs to be created. With “Mirai,” we started working with anime, and in my humble opinion, we were one of the first to understand how big its audience was and how big the audience for adult animation can be. Anime is big with adults and teenagers, and this is the most difficult target audience: teenagers and young adults. Anime is the only international film style that can do it. So, we thought there might be a time when that audience would be open to other types of adult animation, non-Japanese adult animation. But there was almost no distributor willing to try. Of course, there were always a few exceptions, but apart from companies like GKIDS in the U.S. or Madman [Entertainment] in Australia. You can name a few, but you cannot build a solid strategy on or change the game with three or four distributors.

With “I Lost My Body” we sold it to Netflix because Netflix was the most enthusiastic distributor in the world. They were the one company that understood the value of that film. That has changed. Now, with “Memoir” and “Flow,” we have only had theatrical distributors so far and no streamers at all. So, we are creating that new audience. Slowly. It’s happening slowly, but “Flow,” for instance, has surpassed one million theatrical admissions in two weeks in Mexico. That was unthinkable before. Even in the past few years, some wonderful films have failed at the box office, and we suffered for that. We really had to work hard to convince distributors at first. In Germany, for instance, it was difficult at first to get a distributor. It took more time because of the experiences with those other films that did not work theatrically. Hopefully, “Flow” will be a game changer.

And how did you convince those distributors?

It helped that Cannes didn’t put it on the beach but in Un Certain Regard. That made a huge difference in the perception of the film with distributors. It helped us convince distributors who never do animation to give this film a shot. And the success of these films actually helped each other, too. They were side by side all the time. “Flow” played Cannes, and “Memoir” won Annecy. Because of that, we were able to find distributors that treated these films the same as any other film they worked with. They didn’t treat them in any special way, but as super broad films that could appeal to wide audiences.

It also helped that “Flow” was released in France in October and did well. I think when distributors saw the film approaching 500,000 admissions in France, it made them take notice. That was good not only for “Flow,” but for “Memoir” as well. Also, when these films were finally available, the distributors were all aware of them. They were expecting them because we had done promo reels on both and made sure the distributors knew they were coming.

You mentioned earlier that you get involved with these films at a very early stage. Is that something that sales agents must do to find success with these kinds of films?

Because animation takes so much time, these projects depend on early intervention and financing. These films can be made much quicker and more efficiently with the right financial support. Without proper financing, animation takes much longer to produce. Of course, there is risk involved. We joined these projects four years ago and are only now seeing the return on that investment.

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