France Télévisions Jeunesse has greenlighted the animated TV special Super-Lucha, produced by French studio Vivement Lundi!. The 26’ action-comedy for young audience is inspired by Japanese manga and the colorful characters of Mexican wrestling.
Super-Lucha is directed by Goulwen Merret, a French animator born in Mexico City, where he lived until the age of six. Merret went back to his roots to develop the story of Super-Lucha; the heroes of his childhood were not super humans out of comics but wrestlers (or luchadores in Spanish) called Mil Màscaras, Canek or Huracàn Ramìrez. So naturally, his band of kid heroes would be Super Luchadores?
Merrer worked with Suzie Le Texier to write the script, and created the show’s original designs with Agnès Lecreux, the creator and director of the stop-motion TV series Dimitri awarded with an Industry Excellence Award for Character Design at Manchester Animation Festival 2019.
“Super-Lucha will be the first Mexican stop-motion manga!” said producer Mathieu Courtois of Vivement Lundi!. “In this film, Goulwen will combine three elements that have long inspired him: the narrative style borrowed from Japanese animation, the Mexican world of his childhood and its legends, and stop-motion inspired by hand-crafted piñatas.”
Pitched at Cartoon Forum 2020, the project received a commitment from France Télévisions Jeunesse and followed a classical development process between the creative team and the broadcaster. Vivement Lundi! raised development money from the CNC, the Breton regional fund Bretagne Cinéma, from the Breton local TVs TVR, Tébéo, TébéSud and France 3 Bretagne, from la Procirep and Angoa and from the E.U. fund Creative Europe.
French company Autour de Minuit is in charge of the international sales for Super-Lucha.
Vivement Lundi! is an Oscar nominated French production company located in Rennes, Brittany. For 26 years, they have produced and coproduced successful movies such as Memorable by Bruno Collet, This Magnificent Cake! by Emma de Swaef and Marc James Roels, Flee by Jonas Power Rasmussen and No Dogs or Italians Allowed by Alain Ughetto. The year, the studio will celebrate release of the stop-motion omnibus feature Tales from the Magic Garden, which premiered in Berlinale; the selections of new shorts Signal and Atomik Tour in the official competition of the Annecy Festival; and the streaming of Douce, the first Instagram-native 2D series developed by the company. Producers Jean-François Le Corre, Aurélie Angebault and Mathieu Courtois, are now finishing the feature Olivia and the Invisible Earthquake (coproduction between Spain, France, Belgium, Swiss and Chili) and the 52 x 11’ 2D series Harrison and Me coproduced with Superprod and France Télévisions.
Watch the teaser trailer here.
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