The highly-anticipated animation ‘Song of the Sea’, which is Cartoon Saloon’s first feature since the Oscar-nominated and IFTA award-winning film ‘The Secret of Kells’, has secured more international distribution deals after competing at the Annecy International Film Festival, which was on June 9-14.
London-based WestEnd Films was responsible for selling ‘Song of the Sea’. The firm previously secured deals with StudioCanal for the UK and Ireland, with Haut et Court and Orange Cinéma Séries for France, O Brother Distribution for Benelux, Svensk Film for Sweden and Denmark, which are all top-echelon European distribution companies, as well as with GKids for North America.
Eve Schoukroun, Managing Director and co-founder of WestEnd Films, said “Traditionally, pre-sales are rare for an independent animation. Independent distributors are reluctant to pre-buy an animation, unless a film is led by a studio in the U.S.”. She also said deals were closed with “people who loved the quality and commercial narrative of the script, then fell for the promo.”
In early deals, JinJin Pictures acquired rights to South Korea. Other buyers include VTI for former-Yugoslavia, Vue Cinemas for Poland, Soraya Intercine Films for Indonesia, and ECS for the Middle East. A pan-Latin America distribution deal is in advanced negotiations, according to Schoukroun. She also stated that she was confident about finalizing sales to Scandinavia and Australia.
The film, with Brendan Gleeson, Fionnula Flanagan, David Rawle, Lisa Hannigan, Pat Shortt and Jon Kenny leading the voice cast, is based on Irish folklore. It follows Ben and his little sister Saoirse, the last ‘seal-child’, as they go on a journey to return to their home by the sea. Saoirse must find her voice and sing the ‘Song of the Sea’ in order to save all of fairy kind from being lost forever.
Ireland’s Cartoon Saloon produced with arthouse animation producers in Europe that included Luxembourg’s Melusine Prods., Belgium’s The Big Farm, Denmark’s Norlum and France’s Superprod. The film received backing from the IFB, BAI and TG4 among other sources.
The script for ‘Song of the Sea’ was developed by Moore and Irish screenwriter Will Collins (‘My Brothers’). The backgrounds were designed by French artistic director Adrien Merigeau. Bruno Coulais and Irish band Kila, who collaborated on ‘The Secret of Kells,’ composed the original score.
For Schoukroun, “‘Song of the Sea’ could potentially be a crossover movie: the story line follows what kids want to see.” She concluded, “Some people say ‘arthouse is dead,’ but it’s just not true. When you get a great screenplay and great talent behind it, there is room for quality in the market.”
Other Irish animations that attended Annecy this year included Brown Bag Films’ ‘The Octonauts’, Kavaleer’s ‘The Wildernuts’ and award-winning short ‘The Missing Scarf (read more here). Along with animated feature ‘Last Hijack’, a co-production between Ireland, the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany, they were selected for the Official Competition.
See the trailer for ‘Song of the Sea’ below:
