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1 ARTISTERY on display... ...fans of adult theme animation will seek the film out (Screen International) Graphically RICH...dramatically and poetically RIGHT (Variety) This film threads an UNDYING HOPE for the future through every shade of its tragedy and sacrifice (Roger Ebert.com) VISUALLY arresting and emotionally engaging (Eye for Film) 2 Engaging and captivating (Cinefilos) Not to be missed (Taxidrivers) A VISUAL cinematic POEM (EFE Agency) Ultimately TOUCHING...BEAUTIFUL watercolor-like animation (Film Companion) An animated JEWEL (RTVE) If animation can, through the lightness of the drawing line and touches of color, evoke the intimate and the universal while revealing the forbidden, then we want to reward THE SWALLOWS OF KABUL for the strength of its subject and its artistic impetus. (DOMINIQUE HOFF, GENERAL DELEGATE OF THE GAN FOUNDATION) 3 PRESS COVERAGE 4 5 May 16th, 2019 Alissa Simon, Cannes Film Review: ‘The Swallows of KABUL’ Two female directors co-sign this involving adaptation of Yasmina Khadra’s elegant literary fiction ABOUT life UNDER Taliban control in the Afghan capital. The long-awaited, graphically rich, 2D watercolor-style animation “The Swallows Of Kabul” from French helmers Zabou Breitman and Eléa Gobbé-Mévellec provides an involving adaptation of Yasmina Khadra’s elegant literary fiction. The book, an international bestseller about life under Taliban control in the Afghan capital, highlighted a dangerous act of humanity during a grim and violent time via the stories of two couples whose fates become intertwined through death, imprisonment, and remarkable self-sacrifice. This supplies the core plot of the film, with the action condensed into a tight 81 minutes. Purists may object that the prestige production takes some liberties with novel, but on the whole, the inventions by screenplay writers Sébastien Tavel, Patricia Mortagne, and co-helmer Breitman feel dramatically and poetically right. The action unfolds in 1998 (as opposed to the novel’s 2001), shortly after the fundamentalist Taliban have come to power. Historian Mohsen (voiced by Swann Arlaud) and artist Zunaira (Zita Hanrot) are still young and in love. They remain hopeful that they will once again be able to live as they choose in their beloved country. In contrast, the despair-filled prison warden Atiq (Simon Abkarian) and his terminally-ill wife Mussarat (Hiam Abbass) live as if they are already dead. Stoic war vet Atiq has seen too much horror in his life and is unable to express to his wife how much she means to him. She, meanwhile, suffers because she can’t fulfill her wifely functions of shopping, cleaning, and cooking, and because she never bore him a child. It’s the characterization of Mussarat that winds up being the most slighted from the condensing of the novel. 6 May 16th, 2019 Alissa Simon, Spoiler alert for those who haven’t already read the novel: Zunaira winds up in Atiq’s prison, condemned to death for murder. For the Taliban, the opportunity to execute a woman called for special pomp and ceremony, which the film depicts in chilling scenes. Whether it is the faceless, burqa-clad prostitutes stoned to death by crowds after a sermon by a ranting mullah or those kneeling unfortunates blasted in the back of their heads by a Kalashnikov in a soccer stadium full of VIPs, these scenes may be distanced by the drawings, but are still very difficult to watch. Co-director Eléa Gobbé-Mévellec, who is also responsible for the overall character and graphic design, earned her stripes as an animator on popular French features such as “Ernest and Celestine” and “The Rabbi’s Cat.” In a way, the delicate aquarelle graphics have a taste of the former, even while evoking a derelict, war-devastated city where turban-clad men race around in Toyota pickups, whipping pedestrians and firing guns simply because they have the power to do so. As a medium, animation suits this adaptation well; it would have been nearly impossible to shoot as live fiction or on location. Here the drawings communicate quickly what took several pages of description and dialogue to express in the novel, whether it is Mohsen’s memories of better days at the cinema shown as a time-lapse sequence of hand-holding couples in Western clothes or Atiq’s merciless Taliban superior Qassim (Sébastien Pouderoux), as he lolls in a brothel, his long legs pinioning the young girl he is holding on to. Particularly striking are various subjective shots from behind the eye-screen of a burqa, and a climactic scene, in which a man peers into that mesh barrier from the other side, trying to find his wife’s eyes Marking her fifth feature as director, Breitman, who is also a popular actress and director of television and theater, decided to capture her voice cast during live performance rather than simply as voices standing at a mic. This approach lends extra authenticity to the sound and rhythms of the acting, which will be more difficult to replicate if sold to other territories where dubbing is common. Breitman’s father, Jean-Claude Deret, is especially poignant as an elderly former mullah who despairs of the direction his country is taking. In addition to the standout work done by a large team of animators, mention should be made of the redolent sound by Eric Devulder, Pascal Villard, Bertrand Boudaud, and Eric Tisserand and the evocative score by Alexis Rault. https://variety.com/2019/film/reviews/the-swallows-of-kabul-review-1203217257/ 7 Screen Daily May 16th, 2019 Tim Grierson, Effective animated drama about two couples struggling under the cruelty of Taliban rule Two couples at very different phases of life find their destinies intertwined in The Swallows Of Kabul (Les Hirondelles De Kaboul), a melancholy animated drama about the cruelty of Taliban rule. Giving Yasmina Khadra’s 2002 novel a tasteful watercolour treatment, directors Zabou Breitman and Eléa Gobbé-Mévellec risk stripping away the story’s moral indignation in favour of something more bittersweet and restrained. And yet, this tale of repression and injustice is potent enough to overcome the inevitable distancing that occurs because of the animation process. The unassuming approach has its rewards — most pointedly, that it puts the film’s ironies in stark relief Premiering in Un Certain Regard, Swallows also screens in Annecy next month, and fans of adult-themed animation, particularly the recent acclaimed The Breadwinner, will seek the film out. A voice cast that includes Simon Abkarian and Hiam Abbass will further attract buyers, and positive reviews should also be a benefit. Living in Kabul in the summer of 1998, passionate young lovers Mohsen (voiced by Swann Arlaud) and Zunaira (voiced by Zita Hanrot) try to make the best of the fact that their freedom is severely restricted under the Taliban. Meanwhile, a disillusioned middle-aged couple, Atiq (voiced by Abkarian) and Mussarat (voiced by Abbass), aren’t just contending with dangerous fundamentalists — her cancer has progressed to such a point that death seems imminent. 8 Breitman, a live-action filmmaker, joins forces with Gobbé-Mévellec, a cartoonist, character animator and director, and Swallows has been produced by Les Armateurs, the French company responsible for The Triplets Of Belleville andErnest & Celestine. The co-directors first shot with their cast, however, using those filmed scenes as the basis for the final animation. The result is a movie that has a gentle, lived-in quality associated with hand-drawn animated projects. The reserved tone sometimes undercuts an infuriating, heart-breaking study of individuals whose existence is hemmed in by the Taliban’s monstrous behaviour. Swallows features everything from stonings to mass executions — to say nothing of small, daily indignities — and certainly there’s an argument to be made that a live-action telling would have simply been too much for an audience to bear. But to a degree, the delicate animation anaesthetises the viewer, allowing us to appreciate the artistry on display rather than focusing on the Taliban’s barbarism, which is often shown off screen. Admittedly, that storytelling remove is a relief, even if one occasionally longs for a more visceral take on this anguished material. Still, the unassuming approach has its rewards — most pointedly, that it puts the film’s ironies in stark relief. Atiq is a guard at a women’s jail that incarcerates blasphemers who will be killed for their crimes, but his life at home is its own kind of prison because of Mussarat’s failing health — not to mention a rising division between husband and wife. By comparison, Mohsen and Zunaira seem relatively carefree, but they, too, will soon discover how the Taliban’s strangulating grip affects every aspect of their beings. Alexis Rault’s muted score mostly resides in the background, underpinning key moments without overwhelming them, and likewise the voice performances eschew hysterics, letting the story’s growing despondency reveal itself unadorned. Swallows doesn’t try to wow us with fanciful sequences or cutting- edge animation techniques. If Breitman and Gobbé-Mévellec’s pacing is occasionally too slow — at 81 minutes, the film feels a bit slender — the unexpected intersection of these two couple’s lives builds to an ending that, while melodramatic, articulates in simple language the horror that’s been around them all along. https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/the-swallows-of-kabul-cannes-review/5139512.article 9 May 16th, 2019 Barbara Scharres, Life in Afghanistan under the Taliban is a subject that has been addressed in the past in a feature- length animated film, Oscar-nominated “The Breadwinner.” Today, the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes festival premiered “The Swallows of Kabul,” by Zabou Breitman and Elea Gobbe-Mevellec, an animated film in which the fates of two couples in 1998 Kabul become linked through accident and tragedy.

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