Lubicchi lives among great, imposing chimneys whose thick smoke has forever formed a blanket over the sky of his town. He would like to prove to everyone that what his father says is true and that above the clouds, stars exist. On the evening of Halloween, the little chimney sweep meets Poupelle, a strange creature with whom he decides to go off to look for the sky.

Japanese animated cinema is probably the one which manages with the most flexibility and elegance to reconcile the supernatural with the defence of a cause. Without moralising, “Poupelle of Chimney Town” elaborates a message about the protection of the environment and warns us about the dangers of pollution on our ecosystem, as well as on our physical and mental health. Human conflict dies down as soon as each individual succeeds in joining with others under the banner of an essential cause : the defence of nature. The ecological crisis the Earth is going through is nothing more than the reflection of the chaos in which the collective consciousness finds itself.

“The story of the film is a microcosm of modern society in which people who have a vision are not taken seriously, to the point of ending up victimised if they take action to bring it about.” Hirota Yusuke