| Image Upright: | 1.0 |
| Story: | lM |
| Director: | Quentin Baillieux |
| Music: | Ali Elvis Helnwein |
| Country: | France |
| Language: | English, French |
| Producer: | Nicolas de Rosanbo & Carole Lambert |
| Editor: | Benjamin Massoubre & Vincent Tricon |
| Runtime: | 15 minutes |
| Released: | (Canal +)[1] |
Le Mans 1955 is a 2018 French adult animated short film directed by Quentin Baillieux and produced by Nicolas de Rosanbo & Carole Lambert[2] inspired by the 1955 Le Mans disaster. The short has been presented in a number of festivals including in the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival and the Annecy International Animated Film Festival in 2019,[3] [4] [5] and won awards such as the St. Louis International Film Festival for Best Animated Short Film[6] award, qualifying it for the Oscars.
24 Hours of Le Mans, 1955. 300,000 spectators are in attendance. Mercedes-Benz's Silver Arrows, fielding an international all-star team of drivers, are the favorites to win. For their team manager, Alfred Neubauer, it is his final race before retirement. As such, he hopes to win big, and is pinning his hopes on his first team of Juan Manuel Fangio and Stirling Moss. The team's second car, driven by Pierre Levegh and John Fitch, is to support them and make sure they keep the lead. Fitch is disappointed that they aren't being trusted to take the lead spot, but Levegh assures him that they could still be the winning car, as "anything can happen in 24 hours."
The Le Mans start sees early trouble for the Mercedes team when Fangio's car stalls at the start, leaving Levegh as the primary car. As Fitch watches, Levegh tries to catch the leading Jaguar of Mike Hawthorn, while Fangio struggles to make up for lost time. At 6:26 p.m., as the Mercedes drivers are preparing to switch for the next leg, a huge fireball erupts in the stands across from the pits. Fangio, coming in to switch with Moss, reports that the source is Levegh's car, which has left the track and exploded over the crowd, killing many people.
After observing the carnage, Neubauer notices that Moss is moving up, and mentions to Fitch that they can still win. Fitch berates Neubauer for his apparent cold-heartedness to the situation and urges him to withdraw Moss's car, which Neubauer is reluctant to do. In the early light of dawn, just as Moss takes the lead, Neubauer makes the decision to pull Mercedes-Benz out of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, declaring, "We are racing drivers, we're not monsters."
The film ends with intertitles explaining how Mercedes-Benz were the only team to withdraw from the race and did not compete in motorsports for 43 years, that Fitch dedicated himself to road safety, and that with a death count of 80 people, the crash remains the deadliest accident in motorsports history.
Since its launch, the film has received numerous awards, and selected in more than 75 festivals around the world.[8]
| Year | Presenter/Festival | Award/Category | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | Off Courts - Trouville (France) | "Best animated short film" | |
| Warsaw International Film Festival (Poland) | "Best animated short film" | ||
| St. Louis International Film Festival (USA) | "Best Animated Short Film" | ||
| 2019 | French Animation Film Festival, Rennes (France) | "Grand Prix for a Professional Short Film" | |
| Académie des Arts et Techniques du Cinéma (France) | César Award for Best Short Film | [9] | |
| Annecy International Animated Film Festival (France) | "Best Animated Short Film 2019" | ||
| Animamundi Film Festival (Brazil) | "Best Animated Short Film" | ||
| Animayo, Las Palmas, Canary Islands (Spain) | "Best Art Direction" | ||
| Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia, Tokyo (China, Japan) | "Best CG" | ||
| HollyShorts Film Festival - Los Angeles (USA) | "Best Animated Short Film" |
See also: 1955 Le Mans disaster.