“The Little Run” (“La Petit Caval”), the sequel to “Shoom’s Odyssey” by Julien Bissarro and Claire Paoletti, is one of France’s most anticipated upcoming animated features and was produced by Charade and Diafana Distribution.
Charèze, a renowned director-led sales banner aimed at bringing new voices to the world, including Gintz Zilbarodis’ Oscar-winning film Flo, is handling international distribution.
Diafana Distribution, which is also releasing films such as Lucas Dhondt’s “Coward” and Netflix’s Cannes big-buy “In Waves,” will release “The Little Run” in French cinemas.
Little Run, directed by Bissarro and co-written by Paoletti and currently in pre-production, has also received pre-orders at Canal+, Ciné+, France 3 Cinéma in France and ZDF in Germany.
In addition, unreleased footage of “Little Run,” which became a hot topic after winning the 2023 Annecy MIFA Feature Film Pitch Award three times, the Chiklic Center Val de Loire Regional Award, the SACD Award, and the Crystal Publishing Award, was also exclusively shown to Variety.
Much of “Shoom’s Odyssey”’s appeal to preschoolers and their parents comes from its protagonist. Cute owl chick Shumu, fiery black eyes, pretty orange eyes, pure white fluffy feathers. Cookie, the main character of “Little Run,” is a young male blue penguin waddling toward the sea in a new image, encouraging comedy. He dreams of becoming a father, but is unable to lay eggs. Then, a volcanic eruption causes a curious soft echidna egg to fall into his path. What if this is the little egg he’s been waiting for?
Aimed at family audiences ages 5 and up, “Little Run” will be held at Bissaro and Paoletti’s boutique studio Picolo Pictures. Currently, in parallel with the development of a Luxembourg co-production with Doghouse Films, we are establishing an animation pipeline with partner studios.
Director Paoletti said Friday: “It’s amazing to see the film we dreamed up with Julian come to life before our eyes. Thanks to the partners and great artists who came together for this film, we can’t wait to share this story that is especially close to our hearts with a wide audience.”
Neither Cookie nor the echidna talk. “When writing and directing, we used a lot of pantomime. By using silent film, we were able to develop a Chaplin-style situation comedy without dialogue,” Bissarro told Variety at the 2023 Annecy Animation Festival.
“The graphic design is 2D without outlines. It’s like painting with light and shadow. Still, sometimes it’s less saturated and the images are more realistic. It really depends on the intent and scope of the scene,” he said, adding, “At the heart of this film is our desire to tell a story of family bonding.”
The previous image below captures Cookie in a comatose state as she pecks a small, angry echidna with her beak. Hailed as a “tender, visually rich adventure that explores interspecies adoption, attachment, and chosen families” with “an immersive sensory relationship with nature, a painterly 2D aesthetic, and a strong emotional core,” Little Run marks Bissaro and Paoletti’s feature debut.
In the sequel to “Shoom’s Odyssey,” a brave hatchling, Shuum, sets out to find his mother or replacement. The film won Best Television Project at Annecy’s 2020 Crystal Awards and the Annie Award for Outstanding Achievement in Production Design in Television Animation/Media Production. This exquisite 2D animated preschool film has been sold worldwide and was named one of Variety’s 10 must-see shorts at 2020 Annecy.
“Little Run”
