‘The New York Times’T he Legend of Sarila is Canada’s first 3-D animated feature film. The movie has a fine voice cast, including Canadian-born Christopher Plummer and Geneviève Bujold, and a story that takes its inspiration from Inuit culture and legends. There are blizzards and avalanches, sled dog rides through twisting( 1) ice tunnels and mystical battles between rival shamans.

But something peculiar happened to the film on its way to the United States. Before its American DVD release in November, Phase 4 Films, a Toronto-based distributor, changed the title from The Legend of Sarila to Frozen Land, and created a logo for it that was similar to that of Frozen, Disney’s blockbuster animated feature. Lawyers for Disney quickly filed suit( 2) in federal court here the following month. The new name and logo design, the suit argued, were created “to profit from the November 2013 theatrical release of Disney’s Frozen.’”

It took a while for news of the lawsuit to reach Modus FX, the visual-effects and animation studio outside Montreal that worked on the film. “The main feeling around here was really about sadness, because we had been giving it all we’ve got, and we were really proud of the project,” said Eric Clément, the studio’s head of production. “It was sad to see that some people would only hear about the movie because of the lawsuit.”

One result of the legal action was that people began labeling Sarila a mockbuster, that is, a low-budget movie created to piggyback( 3) off the success of a big-budget release. It wasn’t: The film was never intended to be a knockoff( 4) and has almost nothing in common with Frozen other than all that snow and ice. Even so, Phase 4 made a mistake that even longtime producers of real mockbusters tend to avoid. “You can’t copy someone’s logo,” said Scott Meehan, legal counsel for the Asylum, the Burbank studio behind such mockbusters as Almighty Thor and Snakes on a Train. “There are certain ways to use another’s trademark in a title, but if you use that trademark to confuse the public as to its source, you can’t do that. The model is not to confuse the public, but to capitalize on popular culture.”

The Legend of Sarila had been a labor of love from the start. By the time director-producer Nancy Florence Savard brought the film to Modus FX in 2010, she had been working on the project for nearly a decade.

After helping adapt a story by writers Roger Harvey and Pierre Tremblay, she assembled the voice cast, which, in addition to Plummer and Bujold includes Rachelle Lefevre (of the first two Twilight films), Inuit actor and filmmaker Natar Ungalaaq and Canadian pop singer Elisapie Isaac.

Savard then contacted Modus FX, a relatively new company that until that point had specialized in creating visual effects work for live-action films ( The Avengers, Now You See Me ). For Sarila, however, the effects house was asked to create an entire full-length animated feature film in 3-D.

The artists and visual effects experts created 950 shots and 35 speaking characters, from alluring( 5) sea goddesses to chittering( 6) lemmings. The animation crew might have been small by comparison with the giant staffs that work on, say, a Pixar feature, but even so, the film includes several ambitious action sequences, including a chase scene involving a smoke- churning( 7), fiery-eyed skull( 8).

“When you see those big blockbuster movies and watch the credits at the end, and you see the hundreds and hundreds of people on the crew, you’re like, «OK, no wonder( 9) it’s so beautiful,»” said Clément, whose credits include “Journey to the Center of the Earth” and “This Is the End.” “But we did something really nice with the crew that we had.”

The action takes place in Canada’s frozen north in 1910, when three Inuit youths embark( 10) on a quest( 11) to find a mythical land of plenty( 12) to feed their starving( 13) clan back home. If many elements seem familiar - the evil wizard at the story’s core, the cute( 14) furry sidekick( 15) - there are plenty of scenes that remind viewers that this isn’t your typical animated fairyland, but an Arctic region of a hundred years ago. That cute furry sidekick? How come we’re not eating him, wonders one villager, or at least feeding him to one of our sled dogs? That Edenic land of plenty? Grab( 16) a rifle, the same villager decides, we’re going hunting.

Though the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences included Sarila on its list of eligible films for the best animated feature Oscar, the movie didn’t go any further in the race and received middling( 17) reviews on either side of the border. “The film is enjoyable enough, though the plot is as thin as spring ice,” The National Post’s reviewer wrote. The Hollywood Reporter lauded( 18) Plummer’s performance but added that the movie “is unlikely to register as little more than a curiosity here.”

Stateside audiences should be able to decide for themselves soon. The lawsuit with Disney was settled( 19) last month, with Phase 4 agreeing to destroy “all materials in its possession, custody or control” with the Frozen Land name on it. Disney declined to comment for this article, and Phase 4 did not reply to interview requests. The film’s producers stated( 20) in an email: “We are pleased that Phase 4 has settled this matter with Disney, and we look forward to Phase 4 rereleasing this wonderful 3-D animated feature into the market as soon as possible.”

If there is any sort of upside( 21) to the lawsuit and its resolution, the clash( 22 )did bring The Legend of Sarila to the attention of American viewers who might otherwise( 23) never have heard of it. Clément, however, who said the producers had done a “wonderful job” promoting the movie in Canada and elsewhere, isn’t so sure. “I guess you could kind of see this as an upside,” he said of the publicity surrounding the suit. “But to me, it’s not the way you would like to promote a movie.”