Xilam Animation on the global appeal of slapstick
Xilam Animation’s Céline Carenco and Safaa Benazzouz discuss why the French producer and distributor can always count on the CEE and APAC regions when it comes to sales.
Xilam Animation’s Celine Carenco and Safaa Benazzouz
What appetite is there for French animation in the CEE and APAC regions?
CC: Both regions are looking for slapstick comedy because it travels so well worldwide, whether you are in CEE or in APAC. We are being asked for new seasons of our non-dialogue series, such as Oggy & the Cockroaches and Zig & Sharko, and we have a new one called Karate Sheep which we recently sold to Warner Bros Discovery for Cartoon Network in Southeast Asia, Taiwan and Hong Kong. We also did a deal recently with Discovery+ and Sony Yay! in India where they renewed some seasons and acquired new seasons of Oggy.
They [buyers in CEE and APAC] love this kind of comedy. In the last 15 months we have sold around 730 hours into CEE. We work with a large range of broadcasters, including both public and commercial channels, because we have different series, genres and targets that appeal to all the key players. The channels are looking for reassuring series like, [upcoming ZDF-, France TV- and BBC-commissioned] Piggy Builders, which is a modern version based of The Three Little Pigs. I also receive lots of requests from APAC for 3D animated series.
SB: Five years ago, we put an emphasis on 3D animation with Oggy & the Cockroaches spin-off Oggy Oggy. We expanded that with TV series like Where’s Chicky? when we acquired 3D animation specialist Cube Creative. This has helped us reach new clients that are mainly looking for 3D animation, so we’re happy to now have this technique in our catalogue because it is asked for in many regions.
We are very lucky to be present in India because it’s very hard for foreign content to have a place there. Japanese anime content is there, but for French content to be in the top ratings, which Oggy, Zig & Sharko and Karate Sheep are, is very rare. As French producers, our main region is always Europe, but Asia has been first sometimes above Europe [in terms of sales] in some years, and I don’t think many distributors can say that if they are based in France. Sales are growing and it’s reassuring because we have stable clients that we can count on every year. Some regions have their ups and downs but we can count on CEE and APAC for our sales.
Piggy Builders is a modern retelling of The Three Little Pigs
Commissions are being cut in a tough economic climate. Is this impacting sales into CEE and APAC?
CC: We are quite lucky because we have lots of seasons of our slapstick comedies. When there is a crisis, people prefer comforting series and it’s less risky for them to go ahead with new seasons of renewable series. People also want to be entertained in tough times, which is another reason they like our comedies.
SB: In 2024 we made a similar number of sales of our catalogue series [compared to in 2023]. In terms of commissions, of course it’s hard to come up with new titles every year, but in 2025 we are covered with Piggy Builders, a new season of Where’s Chicky? and new series Submarine Jim that is launching this year. We are chasing greenlights for a new commission. It’s hard but we are in a good position in the market as a comedy provider. We are lucky to have a lot of non-verbal titles that can travel so well.
What are the biggest challenges and opportunities facing the distribution business?
SB: It’s been very hard to create new brands. We are lucky to have our existing brands but we have to keep maintaining them and we have to establish new brands. On the digital side, our challenge this year is to look for new AVoD and SVoD opportunities in all the regions.
We are always developing our YouTube channels, which have 88 million subscribers in total, and our TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat accounts with new features, so that’s also a big part of our work in the distribution department in order to be closer to our audience and raise brand awareness everywhere.
The public and commercial free TV channels are very stable; they are the ones that have been very faithful. They’ve had a crisis with the decrease of advertising, but they are still here looking for new content and they are developing their VoD businesses internally.
We can also count on European financing and French financing to help us finance new shows. What we did on Piggy Builders is an example of a great way to finance shows, having three commissioners working all together. The first episode doesn’t seem like a domestic show – it’s really a European show – and the response from other countries and continents has been very good. There’s a challenging year ahead but I think we have the ingredients to cross it safely.
