French classic "Balloon" aloft again at Cannes

By Charles Masters

PARIS (Hollywood Reporter) - More than 50 years after it won the Palme d'Or for best short film in Cannes, Albert Lamorisse's 34-minute children's classic "The Red Balloon" is returning to the Croisette.

A restored copy of the 1956 film about a little boy who befriends a balloon with a life of its own in the streets of Paris will screen on Saturday as part of the Directors' Fortnight sidebar. And the little boy himself -- the director's son Pascal Lamorisse -- will be on hand to promote the picture, which also won screenplay Oscar.

Lamorisse junior was 5 at the time of the shoot. "I didn't have a very normal childhood. People recognized me and just wanted to talk about the film," he recounts.

Eschewing an acting career, Pascal Lamorisse worked as a technician on films and has directed an as-yet unreleased movie. He also manages the rights to the films of his father, who died in a helicopter accident in 1970 while on a shoot in Iran.

"Red Balloon's" restoration has been undertaken in conjunction with its companion piece, "White Mane," Albert Lamorisse's black-and-white short from 1952 about a boy and a wild horse. French sales company Films Distribution spent more than $200,000 restoring the two films, to which it has acquired worldwide rights.

"It is a perfect double bill. The two together make up the length of a feature, and the sad tone of the first film is countered by the optimistic note in the second," Films Distribution co-chief Nicolas Brigaud-Robert says.

Films Distribution says it will be insisting on a theatrical release as part of its sales strategy in Cannes. "The age of the films doesn't change what they are. When you see a Disney film from the 1950s, you don't dismiss it as just an old film," Brigaud-Robert says.

Having charmed several generations, "Red Balloon" continues to influence filmmakers today. Hou Hsiao-Hsien's "Flight of the Red Balloon" starring Juliette Binoche, which will open Cannes sidebar Un Certain Regard, is loosely inspired by Lamorisse's work.