To Make His Movie More Realistic, Director Built an Underwater City; Shooting Was a Nightmare and Left Unfinished

There are many projects that - despite the great intentions of their creators - have not lived to see implementation. Some time ago, for example, we wrote about >a huge fantasy flop, which never made it to the screens, and this despite the million-dollar budget or the star-packed cast. Among such unfinished movies is also the French 'L'Enfant et la Sirene (The Boy and the Mermaid), and its story is no less interesting than that concerning Empires of the Deep.

Everything began in the 1960s with Sylvear Néjad Atzamba's ambitious plan - a director who wanted to make a musical animation, the action of which was to take place underwater. He wanted everything to look extremely realistic, so between 1963 and 1965 he decided to build an underwater town. He went to the French Riviera and, together with his team at a depth of 30 meters, he erected a hotel, a church, an amphitheater, a store, a law office and a hair salon.

The preparatory work took two years. Unfortunately, just after completing the underwater city, the team realized that shooting underwater would be much more difficult than imagined. Sylver Néjad Atzamba therefore had no choice, than to abandon his marine location and work in an animation studio.

Interestingly, the movie, which could have told the story of mermaid's life even before Disney's 1989 animation, was never completed - the problem was most likely money, or rather the lack of it. Little is known about the plot of 'L'Enfant et la Sirene'. The filmed footage was lost, and only a few stills remain from the production. The underwater town itself, however, is doing quite well - it underwent restoration in 2007 and today is an attraction for divers. So if you are on vacation off the coast of Cape Antibes on the French Riviera, you can visit the underwater set of a movie project that didn't make it to production.

• animated films
• musical
• movie & TV series trivia