Pink Parrot Media’s animated film “Butterfly Tale” bestowed with prestigious animation screenplay award from the international animation film festival stuttgart (IFTS)
Montreal/Madrid-based international sales and distribution company, PINK PARROT MEDIA, (PPM) has garnered the International Animation Film Festival Stuttgart’s (ITFS) prestigious Trickstar Professional German Animation Screenplay Award for, the Ulysses & CarpeDiem animated feature and IP property, “Butterfly Tale”. The award was given on Friday May 7th virtually at this year’s event Pink Parrot Media is the distributor for the highly anticipated film.
ITFS is one of the world’s largest and Oscar-qualifying most important European festivals for animated film. Founded in 1982, the Festival is dedicated to promoting artistic animated films, young talented artists and the entire animated film sector. The award for the best screenplay for animated feature-length film recognizes tthe quality and creativity in scripts writing.
“Butterly Tale” is co-produced by Canada’s CarpeDiem (“Snowtime!”, “Snowsnaps”) and Germany’s Ulysses Filmproduktion (“Ooops! Noah Is Gone”, “The Amazing Maurice”). The production of the animated feature film started in January featuring first time film director Sophie Roy, one of the few upcoming Canadian female animation directors. Produced by Marie-Claude Beauchamp at CarpeDiem and Ulysses’ Emely Christians.
“We are extremely honored to be recognized in this way, by such an important venue,” Marie-Claude Beauchamp noted. “The strength of that script resides in its capacity to engage the audience on a quest bigger than life: being different, being accepted by its peers while challenged by the greatest journey of a lifetime, all of that with humor and tears!”
“Butterly Tales” has been pre-sold to France & Germany (WildBunch), Poland & Romania (Monolith), Former Yugoslavia (Blitz) and Middle East (Front Row) as well as Canada (A71, Maison 4:3 and PPM) and will be released in theaters in Q4 2022. Tania Pinto Da Cunha, Head of International Sales is very positive for the next steps: “I was already extremely happy to see this beautiful project starting production this January with lots of interest from worldwide distributors and now with this great script prize, it just gives me such joy and confidence that the rest of the pre-sales around the world will just get better.”
Credits for the film include author and writer, Heidi Foss. In addition to screenwriting, story editing and series development for shows on HBO, Fox, PBS, YTV, Nickelodeon and the BBC, Heidi is a well-known Canadian stand-up comedian. She recently was story editor on the first season of Air Bud’s ‘Pup Academy’, for Disney. About the movie, Heidi states: “When I first learned of the annual monarch butterfly migration, I thought it would make a great animated road movie, with all the elements of an epic story; courage, adventure, heroism, and of course, humour!“
Lienne, who was a nominee for the 2019 Canadian Screen Awards and WGC Awards for Best Writing on the animated TV series ‘Wishfart’, also joins the production team as screenwriter. Sawatsky is best known for her work on notable series for Disney Channel, Nick Jr, Cartoon Network. (Sidekick, Hot Wheels: Battle Force 5) and more recently the original Netflix show ‘Kid Cosmic’. With lots of humility, Lienne shared: “It’s such a great honour to be recognized by the ITFS for Butterfly Tale. I’d like to share our award with the half million monarchs who travel nearly 4,000 kilometers every year!”
“Ulysses immediately wanted to partner on this beautiful project and with enthusiasm we threw ourselves into our work to develop this film after learning about the beautiful butterflies migration.”says German producer Emely Christians. “We filmmakers are happy to do our bit, we want to entertain the children and encourage them to ask questions about their own world and to reflect on where and how they see themselves and others in our diverse communities and challenges. Being Awarded by ITFS for the script is a wonderful appreciation – congratulation and thank you to Heidi Foss and Lienne Sawatsky for this outstanding work!”
From Director Sophie Roy, “Congratulations to Heidi and Lienne for winning the ITFS German Animation Screenplay Award. Your dedication, talent and funny bones shine through every inch of the Butterfly Tale script.”
