General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

April and the Extraordinary World

April and the Extraordinary World (Avril et le monde truqué) is a 2015 animated science-fiction adventure film directed by Christian Desmares and Franck Ekinci, produced by France, Belgium, and Canada, and set in an alternate steampunk history in which the disappearance of the world's scientists has stalled technology in the age of coal and steam.¹^•² It is the first animated feature based on the graphic universe of the French comics artist Jacques Tardi, who is credited with the film's visual creation.²

Key fact	Detail
Original title	Avril et le monde truqué (also translated as "April and the Twisted World")¹^•³
Directors / screenplay	Christian Desmares and Franck Ekinci; screenplay by Franck Ekinci and Benjamin Legrand; music by Valentin Hadjadj¹
Visual creation	Jacques Tardi, credited with the film's graphic universe; first animated feature based on his work²
Production	Je Suis Bien Content, StudioCanal, Kaibou Productions (Canada), and Need Productions (Belgium)²
French release	4 November 2015; CNC visa dated 1 October 2015, duration 106 minutes⁴
Awards	Cristal for Best Feature Film, Annecy International Animation Festival 2015; nominated for the 2016 César for Best Animated Film²
Critical reception	97% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer (59 reviews); 77% audience score⁵

Spoilers

Premise and story

The film's divergence from real history begins in July 1870. Emperor Napoleon III, on the eve of war with Prussia, has commissioned a scientist to develop a serum that would create invincible soldiers; an explosion in the laboratory kills the scientist and the emperor, and the Franco-Prussian War never happens.⁶ In the resulting timeline, scientists and inventors have been disappearing mysteriously for seventy years, depriving humanity of inventions such as radio, television, electricity, aviation, and the internal combustion engine. By 1941 Napoleon V reigns over a France, and a world, governed by coal and steam.⁷

The heroine, April (Avril), is the descendant of a family of researchers who worked in secret on an invincibility or longevity serum. After her parents and grandfather vanish in a police raid, she lives hidden in Paris with her talking cat, Darwin, and continues the family research. Pursued by the dogged police inspector Pizoni and by a shadowy organization, she uncovers a vast conspiracy involving the kidnapped scientists, aided by Darwin and a young street thief named Julius.²^•⁸ The science-fiction encyclopedia entry describes the film's alternate history as turning on the 1870 death of Napoleon III, after an ill-aimed shot in the laboratory of the scientist Gustave Franklin caused the explosion.⁹

The alternate Paris is rendered in detail: two Eiffel Towers stand side by side and serve as the departure station for a cable-car service linking European cities in 82 hours.¹⁰ Because all energy comes from coal and steam, the city is polluted and its inhabitants wear gas masks; reviewers noted that the film acknowledges that living in such an industrialized world would be unpleasant, and that it reads as commentary on where real-world fossil-fuel dependence may lead.¹¹^•¹²

Production and style

The film was produced by Je Suis Bien Content, which handled it as lead and executive producer, coordinating work in its own studios and in Belgium, Canada, Lille, and China.² It is drawn largely in 2D with some 3D, in a hand-drawn style that translates Tardi's line work to the screen; critics compared the result to a hybrid of Hayao Miyazaki's Howl's Moving Castle and Hergé's The Adventures of Tintin while noting its own character.²^•¹² The screenplay is by Franck Ekinci and Benjamin Legrand, the latter one of the creators of the original Snowpiercer graphic novel.¹^•¹¹

Voice cast and release

The original French-language cast is led by Marion Cotillard as April, with Philippe Katerine as Darwin, Jean Rochefort as Pops, Marc-André Grondin as Julius, Bouli Lanners as Pizoni, Olivier Gourmet as Paul, and Anne Coesens as Chimène.⁷ The film premiered at the 2015 Annecy International Animation Film Festival, where it won the Cristal for Best Feature Film, and was released in France and Belgium on 4 November 2015.²^•¹

GKIDS released the film in the United States theatrically on March 25, 2016, in both subtitled and dubbed versions, with a new English dub featuring Paul Giamatti, Tony Hale, Susan Sarandon, and J.K. Simmons; Angela Galuppo voices April in the dub.¹³^•⁵^•¹⁴ Runtime listings differ slightly by version: the French CNC record gives 106 minutes,⁴ Cineuropa lists 103 minutes,¹ and US listings typically give 105 minutes.⁵

Reception

The film holds a 97% Tomatometer score on Rotten Tomatoes from 59 reviews, with a critics consensus calling it "bursting with a colorful imagination befitting its promise-packed title"; the audience Popcornmeter stands at 77%.⁵ It was Certified Fresh by Rotten Tomatoes in 2016, listed that year at 98%.¹⁵ Reviewers singled out the world-building and hand-drawn craft: the RogerEbert.com review called it "a joyful, accomplished movie" whose animation "almost feels effortless,"³ and the South China Morning Post gave it four stars, praising its "intricately imagined alternate world" while finding the story rambling.⁸ Common Sense Media rated it suitable for ages 9 and up, calling it "a mature and compelling story for older kids and teens" with positive messages about scientific discovery.¹⁶

Beyond the Annecy Cristal, the film was nominated for the 2016 César for Best Animated Film and received a nomination from the Annie Awards.²^•¹⁷ It has since been called among the most unmistakable recent examples of animated steampunk, combining a Franco-Belgian comics sensibility with counterfactual history and a setting choked by factory fumes.¹⁸

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026