9 Story, Mixer move ahead with Vivi

Canada’s 9 Story Entertainment and São Paulo-based Mixer are moving into production on preschool series Vivi, marking the former’s first coproduction with a Brazilian indie.

Vivi

Vivi, created by Brazilian author Alê Abreu, was one of two properties 9 Story acquired from Skywriter Media a year ago and the Canuck producer-distributor is now taking the 52×11’ cartoon to the next stage.

Aimed at three- to seven-year-olds, Vivi follows the adventures of an artistic young girl and her photojournalist grandmother as they travel the world capturing their experiences in a scrapbook.

The project received backing from São Paulo funding initiative Anima TV in 2009, with Skywriter coming onboard shortly after, along with Canadian educational broadcaster TVO, Discovery Kids Latin America and Brazil’s TV Cultura.

Having spent the past 12 months refining Vivi, 9 Story and Mixer – which received a 2013 International Emmy nomination for Nickelodeon Brazil live-action teen novela Julie & the Phantoms – are now poised to start production.

“The fact that it came from the Brazilian market represents an opportunity for us both in terms of expanding our reach from a coproduction standpoint, tapping into new talent and adding to our library with some content we thought would also travel internationally,” 9 Story president and CEO Vince Commisso told C21 here at the Rio Content Market (RCM).

“It was clear to me even before we got involved in Vivi that Brazil is a country where a lot of creative talent comes from, with a large population base and growing market with tremendous support for animation. It would be almost irresponsible of me, as a producer looking for places with new talent and new content, not to consider Brazil.”

Vivi is Mixer’s second coproduction with a Canadian partner following preschool series Doggy Day School – a collaboration with Cité Amerique for TV Ontario, Radio Canada, Nickelodeon Latin America and TV Cultura in Brazil.

Mixer content producer Reynaldo Marchesini said that while the Brazilian TV industry remains a somewhat new player in the international coproduction space, “we’re not that new anymore.”

“We are much more evolved,” he said. “This market [RCM] reflects that. As with others, we still need to partner, compete, learn and exchange knowledge and Canada is a strong territory in that sense – particularly in animation – so for us it makes a lot of sense to partner with companies like 9 Story.”