Telefilm Canada has announced a $4.8 million commitment to fund five big-budget projects for the English-speaking market under its Production Program. This second round of decisions (following 13 previously announced titles) includes the first animated project: Fairyheart (working title).
Fairyheart is an animated fantasy adapted from the children’s book Fairy Lala by Hungarian author Magda Szabó. (The book was published in English under the title The Gift of the Wondrous Fig Tree.) Per the project’s description from Animation Production Days 2020:
Lala, the mischievous fairy prince, is in trouble again: He has left the boundaries of the fairy kingdom disguised as a human boy. Near a lonely beach house on the human half of a mysterious island, Lala meets the human girl, Bea. Having recently lost her mother, Bee is on the island with her father to heal. Lala and Bea’s forbidden friendship sets off a series of events in the world of the fairies that put the future of the fairy kingdom in jeopardy. The two friends set out to right the wrongs and defeat the cruel sorcerer Aterpater, who holds Lala’s mother, the queen, in his grip.
The project marks the animated feature directorial debut of Anita Doron, winner of the Canadian Screen Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for her work on Nora Twomey’s The Breadwinner (with Deborah Ellis). Doron previously helmed the award-winning live-action features The End of Silence and The Lesser Blessed. The screenplay is written by Doron and Attila Gigor. Telefilm lists the production company as Storyteller Pictures Inc., with Vortex Media attached as distributor.
The development and production of film is also supported by the National Film Institute of Hungary. The development was supported by Creative Europe Media Program in a slate support granted to Hungary’s Mythberg Films, which is the lead producer of Fairyheart.
According to the APD pitch, the 2D film will feature a unique aesthetic built on Japanese animation traditions as well as the work of Hungarian artists like Attila Dargay. In an interview with Les Femmes s’Animent, Doron revealed that the character designs were created by U.S.-based artist Simón Estrada (Rick and Morty, Big Mouth) and that the animation will be produced in Hungary; According to the film’s producer Paul Lenart, the current team consists of Mythberg Films (Hungary, producers Jozsef Berger and Krisztina Endrenyi), Storyteller Pictures (Canada, producer Paul Lenart), Cinemon Entertainment (Hungary, producer Reka Temple), Lakeside Animation (Canada, producers Iouri Stepanov and Courtney Wolfson), and Traumhaus Studios GmbH (Germany, producer Michael Luda).
The producers will be taking the film to TIFF in Toronto and OIAF in Ottawa this fall and are seeking an international sales agent for the movie, prior to the projected production start date in the first quarter of 2025.
Telefilm notes it received a high volume of applications under the Production Program this year. From this second intake, 20 projects were assessed from the English market representing over $33.1 million in funding requests. More funding decisions, including projects from the Talent to Watch Program, will be announced in the coming weeks. Statistics on all films funded in the year will be released once all funding decisions have been made.
More information on the other projects announced today and previously is available through the Telefilm Canada blog here and here.
An advisory committee of external and internal representatives assessed the projects and made recommendations to Telefilm. The decision-making process considered Telefilm’s goal of fostering a diversity of voices in the industry, ensuring that Telefilm funds a balanced portfolio of productions that reflect a variety of genres, budgets and company sizes, regions of the country and points of view. Names of selection committee members will be published on the Project Financing Advisory Committees webpage once all funding decisions have been made.
