We had been eagerly awaiting the presentation of the upcoming animated feature Twisted at the Annecy Festival. To be honest, we weren’t quite sure what to expect: the project, inspired by Italian folklore, sounded promising, but would the Unreal Engine visual approach live up to expectations? Judging from the first footage shown, the answer is a resounding yes.

Monsters, Lies, and a Village in Northern Italy

Animator (Tangled, Frozen) and director (Playmobil: The Movie) Lino DiSalvo, along with producer Emmanuel Jacomet, shared the origins of the project. It all started with a simple email sent by DiSalvo ten years ago about the Badalisc, a folkloric creature from Northern Italy.
This monster plays a central role in Epiphany celebrations, during which a kind of cathartic performance takes place: the creature reveals the village’s secrets.

Lino DiSalvo at the Annecy Festival

Twisted adapts this folklore. The story follows Angelina, a heroine who lies and tells people what they want to hear. But a curse causes her lies to create monsters. She must seek help from the Badalisc, who, on the other hand, is incapable of lying and has been cast out of the village.
The premise partly reflects DiSalvo’s own experience. Growing up in the United States, he would tell his parents that, of course, he would one day take over the family restaurant—before ultimately choosing a career in animation.

The team also screened a promising clip featuring expressive characters, refined visuals, and carefully crafted lighting.
Behind the scenes, the film benefits from the work of La Grange Animation, a studio founded by Clément Dartigues in the heart of his family’s farm in the Landes region of France. The visual development team created a style that embraces asymmetry and strong graphic lines.
A research trip to the Italian village of Andrista gave the artists a solid foundation for bringing the film’s world to life, while also allowing them to meet local residents. As a result, several real-life interiors have been adapted directly into the film.
As Dartigues and DiSalvo explained, the goal was to achieve a relatively naturalistic result that avoids clichés and prioritizes authenticity, while still creating a film with broad international appeal.

Unreal Engine Takes Center Stage: a winning bet for Dwarf

The next challenge was turning the concepts into moving images. This is where Olivier Pinol, founder of Dwarf Studio, took the stage before inviting part of the studio team to join him for a live demonstration.

Olivier Pinol (Dwarf), Clément Dartigues (La Grande Animation), Emmanuel Jacomet (Mediawan Kids & Family), Lino DiSalvo

The team has used Unreal Engine for most of the production pipeline and offered a real-time look at scene manipulation directly within the engine.
Unreal is employed very early in production, enabling advanced lighting from the layout stage onward. According to the Dwarf team, this is a real game changer and “every art director’s dream.” Interactive rendering greatly facilitates iteration. Final images are also rendered directly in Unreal, without passing through Nuke or any other compositing software. Only animation work is handled in Maya.
The results are impressive, and we are eager to learn more.

Credit: Mediawan Kids & Family – Palomar – France 3 Cinéma – Le Pacte

CNC Praised Amid Political Threats

Before concluding, we must mention that Emmanuel Jacomet took the opportunity to openly thank the European creative financing ecosystem, particularly France’s CNC (Centre National du Cinéma et de l’Image Animée).
He emphasized that financing the project had not been easy and stated that without CNC support, the Badalisc would never have made it to the screen. He described the institution as a major force in animation that “must be protected.”
The remark was a clear reference to current political debates in France, where some political movements openly challenge CNC funding, and by extension its existence and activities.

More to come next year

Audiences will have to wait until the second quarter of 2027 to see the film. Twisted will receive a theatrical release in Europe, though different distribution strategies may be adopted in certain territories. As the producers explained, choosing the right release date will be crucial.
In the United States, the decision between a theatrical release and a streaming launch has not yet been finalized.

Until then, Lino DiSalvo and the film’s teams will continue their work. As DiSalvo put it: “The last thing I want is for the people of the village to say that it’s not like their village”.