"ACIDE/Acid": Disaster movies are possible even with a low budget

■ Disaster movies with budget constraints
This is a French film where the main plot centers on a family story, while the subplot uses the social issue of acid rain as a backdrop.
The opening riot scene effectively creates an unsettling atmosphere that permeates the entire story, skillfully drawing the audience into the drama.

The protagonist is a short-tempered father who constantly causes trouble,

but,
for his daughter, he would go through fire and rain...
■ Handling the subject of acid rain

Whether this can be treated as a disaster movie with acid rain as the main theme

remains open to debate.
Certainly, acid rain is depicted as the background of the story, but

it can be said that it functions merely as an element to highlight the family story.
Even globally, it would be difficult outside of Hollywood to produce large-scale films that can make natural environments like acid rain the main plot,

like the recent "Twisters," which focuses squarely on tornadoes.
■ Scale and budget unique to French cinema

This film is produced on a small scale typical of French cinema,

resulting in a high-quality work with all the excess trimmed away.
While it has a quality comparable to American independent films, the story is told from a more personal perspective,

and I estimate the budget to be around 300 million yen.
Incidentally, in Japanese cinema, the number of films that can account for a pure production budget of 300 million yen, excluding distribution and advertising costs, is steadily decreasing.

In the independent film industries of New York and LA, as well as in France, minimum wages are stipulated according to the scale of the work,

ensuring minimum treatment for cast and staff.
Therefore, even for small-scale works like this one,

it can be said that quality is ensured by the skills of the cast and staff at a certain level or higher.
■ Comparison with horror and B-movies

If you have high quality and a low budget,

you might want to aim for a hit like a horror or B-movie,
but while such works require high technical skills from the staff,

the skills and presence of the cast are also indispensable.

A popular work related to rain?

Speaking of "The Devil's Rain",

someone like Ernest Borgnine,

someone who makes you think, 'This guy might just have the spirit to make acid rain fall,'

the presence, acting ability, and persuasiveness of an actor who can carry the worldview of the work,
and the technical skills of special effects,
it goes without saying that a work that captivates the audience is only born when various elements are combined.