Adult Animation Could Help Lure Audiences Back to Cinemas, Experts Say

Ted Sarandos To Be Named Entertainment Person Of The Year At Cannes Lions

Emilio Mayorga Cinema Management Group (CMG) has inked multiple new sales deals for César Zelada’s sophomore feature “Kayara,” an animated teen-empowerment fable produced by Lima-based Tunche Films in co-production with India’s Toonz Media Group via its Canary Islands-based Fortoon Island.In the latest wave of sales, Mis. Label Aps has acquired “Kayara” for Scandinavia, Films4You for Portugal, Bir for Turkey, Bohemia for Czech and Slovak Republics, Blitz for Ex-Yugoslavia, Five Star for Israel, Muse for Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia, Falcon for Indonesia, and Mongol Films Distribution for Mongolia.“With the continued interest in authentic, indigenous animated stories, we are confident ‘Kayara’ will, like our previous animated hit ‘Ainbo: Spirit of the Amazon,’ be licensed to blue-chip independent distributors in every territory around the world for release in 2024,” CMG President Edward Noeltner told Variety.

Martin Dale ContributorFrance is the world’s third-biggest animation producer, according to data from the CNC, with 7,790 employees last year.A rising number of international productions, especially TV animation series, are flocking to France, attracted by its 30% tax rebate for international projects (TRIP) program.A higher 40% tax rebate is available for VFX projects with over €2 million ($2.14 million) VFX spend in France, with seven projects supported in 2021, including Ridley Scott’s “The Last Duel.”In 2021, animation repped 46% of all foreign production spend under the TRIP scheme, marking a 62% increase between 2019 and 2021.Demand for animation and VFX staff is surging in France with 16% job growth in 2021 alone. The number of TRIP-supported animation projects doubled between 2019 and 2021, and the number of all film and TV projects (fiction and animation) increased by 231%.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentCharades has closed a raft of deals on “Little Nicholas: Happy as Can Be,” an animated feature which world premiered at Cannes in the Special Screenings section and will go on to compete at Annecy festival. Directed by Benjamin Massoubre and Amandine Fredon, “Little Nicholas: Happy as Can Be” is based on author René Goscinny and New Yorker cartoonist Jean-Jacques Sempé’s popular children books from the 1960’s which have been translated into than 30 languages.

An animated Christmas Carol, follow-up to Academy Award-nominee Klaus, adaptation of Richard Curtis’ That Christmas and untitled project from Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were Rabbit’s Steve Box feature on an eight-strong slate of Netflix animated films and TV series.

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Tomris Laffly A gleaming and delightful anime with a large appetite for tenderness and laughter, director Ayumu Watanabe’s mother-daughter saga “Fortune Favors Lady Nikuko” boundlessly adores its titular character even when it lingers a tad too long on her happy-go-lucky naiveté or ample love of food.We get introduced to Nikuko (Shinobu Ôtake), a charming thirtysomething living with her young daughter, Kikuko (Cocomi), as she contentedly works at a local grill house in a small port town in Northern Japan. Heavyset, carefree and irrepressibly joyful in a manner that both puzzles and disarms everyone around her, she is known as “the cheery plump lady who wound up living here” to townsfolk.

Disney+ will further expand its lineup of Star Wars content with a pair of upcoming series, Tales Of The Jedi and Young Jedi Adventures. The two shows were revealed during the three-day Star Wars Celebration 2022 event at the Anaheim Convention Center.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief“Lendarys,” a big-budget family adventure animation film that is currently in production, scored a handful of pre-sales during the Cannes Market. Rights sales are handled by Hong Kong-, Paris and Los Angeles-based All Rights Entertainment.With a production budget of $30 million, the film is the directorial debut of Philippe Duchene and Jean-Baptiste Cuvelier.

Sony Pictures Classics has acquired all rights in North America, Latin America, Scandinavia, the Middle East, Israel, India and Italy, and aboard airlines and ships worldwide, to the animated film The Magnificent Life of Marcel Pagnol, from writer-director Sylvain Chomet. The deal for Chomet’s English-language feature follows SPC’s distribution of his past films The Triplets of Belleville and The Illusionist.

K.J. Yossman Rudyard Kipling’s “Kim” is set to get an animated feature adaptation by Indian filmmaker Ketan Mehta.Mehta’s animation studio, Cosmos-Maya, will co-develop the film alongside Irish animation studio Piranha Bar. Mehta (“Sardar,” “Mangal Pandey: The Rising”) will direct.“Kim” is a story about Kimball O’Hara, AKA Kim, a savvy street kid turned child spy in colonial-era India who becomes an apprentice to a Shaolin monk.

Lise Pedersen “The Little Nicholas: Happy as Can Be” by Benjamin Massoubre and Amandine Fredon is having its world premiere at a Special Screening at the Cannes Film Festival on May 20.Several years in the making, the film brings together the world-famous French schoolboy and his creators, author René Goscinny and cartoonist Jean-Jacques Sempé, as it goes back and forth between their world and his imaginary world.Translated into more than 30 languages, the Little Nicholas short stories have been adapted to fiction but never to animation until now. For the creative team, it was essential to stay true both to Goscinny’s short stories and to Sempé’s drawings.“The main challenge was to create the Little Nicholas’ world in animation and, at the same time, remain faithful to Sempé’s style – his drawings are very small, they’re made in ink, which gives them a sort of awkward but very lively energy, full of emotion.

Crunchyroll announced Thursday the acquisition of Makoto Shinkai’s anime feature “Suzume no Tojimari” for all territories outside of Asia. “Suzume no Tojimari,” which follows a 17-year-old girl named Suzume who must close various doors that are causing destruction throughout Japan, will debut in Japan on November 11 this year from Toho, and will be distributed in all major territories beginning in early 2023.

Holly Jones Encapsulating humanity’s weighty history and paths toward healing, director Véra Belmont (“Red Kiss”) takes a leap from live-action cinema to animated feature with her latest project, “My Father’s Secrets,” a Holocaust story that tackles generational familial trauma and redemption.Based on the graphic novel “Second Generation” by Israeli illustrator Michel Kichka, the film is set for its market premiere at the Cannes Marché du Film, with the incentive for international markets of Elliott Gould leading the English voice cast.“My Father’s Secrets,” set in Belgium, introduces two young brothers, Michel and Charly, who struggle with their father Henri’s reclusive nature surrounding his time at Auschwitz. Their imaginations get the better of them as their father retreats inward on a personal journey to recoup his life after surviving the tragedies of internment.