Global Breakouts: French Animated Series ‘Samuel’ About Growing Pains Of 10-Year-Old Boy Is Poised For Int’l Push Having Delivered Viral Hit For Arte

Melanie Goodfellow
·6 min read

Welcome to Global Breakouts, Deadline’s fortnightly strand in which we shine a spotlight on the TV shows and films killing it in their local territories. The industry is as globalized as it’s ever been, but breakout hits are appearing in pockets of the world all the time and it can be hard to keep track… So we’re going to do the hard work for you.

After a short hiatus, we’re back this week, spotlighting the French animated series Samuel. The show is about a 10-year-old boy living in a small town who keeps a diary documenting his life, from his crush on Julie, to interactions with school mates Basil, Dimitri, Corentin and Bérenice. The unusual program consists of 21 episodes running two to six minutes. Having enjoyed success in France, Germany and Spain, it is now poised for a wider global push following the recent acquisition of world sales rights by Paris-based Folivari International.

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Name: Samuel
Country: France
Network: Arte
Producer: Les Valseurs
For fans of:  My Year of Dicks
Distributor: Folivari International

Deceptively simple in black and white, short format animated series Samuel, revolving around a boy on the cusp of adolescence, has racked up a cumulative 35 million views on French-German broadcaster Arte, as well as its social channels, since its launch last March. It has also provided a hit for Spain’s national broadcaster RTVE and the regional Catalan channel TV3, and their respective platforms.

The show is now poised for a wider global push, following the recent acquisition of world sales rights by Paris-based company Folivari International.

Samuel is the brainchild of emerging French animation director émilie Tronche, who initially created the protagonist as a personal project in 2020.

“I was working at an animation studio in Nantes. In the final months of the production, I had a bit of spare time, and I threw myself into making a very, very short film, very quickly without thinking too much about where I was going with it,” she recounts.

“It wasn’t really a professional project. It was really just for me — I made it in five days. Today, that little film is the first episode of the series. The subject and the design came together very rapidly without too much reflection.”

The character of Samuel emerged in part out of her passion for the subject of childhood. “I was trying to create an authentic child character, asking myself how he thinks and talks and trying to pin down all these little details,” says Tronche. “Samuel’s universe came together pretty rapidly and in the first episode there’s already the tone and DNA of the eventual series.”

He was also inspired by Tronche’s memories, with the director weaving anecdotes from her own childhood into the eventual show.

“He lives in the same house where I grew up, the same town, so there are lots of codes and little details from my childhood,’ she says. “At the creation and production stage, I also immersed myself in the books, manga and comics that I read when I was younger… works like Julien Neel’s Lou!, which I was a huge fan of when I was around 10-years-old, as well as Mitsuru Adachi’s Rough. I turned a lot to Japanese storytelling around love stories in manga, which can be a bit cheesy at times, but I find has an authenticity about it.”

Tronche posted the short film on the social networks, where it started getting traction, encouraging her to make new episodes, and also caught the attention of producer Damien Megherbi, co-founder of production house Les Valseurs.

“I loved the tone and the authenticity of the writing,” he says. “I knew émilie was extremely talented, but it was extremely simple, and I wasn’t sure exactly what it could be developed into. It was only after émilie made a second, third and then fourth episode and posted them that I began to see its potential as a series.”

Les Valseurs has produced several award-winning short films, including Wicked Girl, which won the Jury Prize at Annecy and a César for Best Animated Short, is now actively expanding into feature films and series.

Megherbi connected with Tronche, around the same time that Arte contacted the director to enquire about a potential collaboration. “Arte is one of the rare broadcasters in France offering slots for short animations aimed at the YA audience and adults,” says Megherbi.

Tronche started writing scripts and a story arc began to develop with other characters and life events emerging as well as the love story between Samuel and Julie, which is now at the heart of the show.

“We got to 10 or 11 episodes but then Arte came back to us and asked if we could double that, so we had to find a way to extend the story arc and ended up with 21 episodes. The initial four episodes are very simple but as it advances, both the animation and the storyline become more complex,” says Tronche.

The beauty of the show, say Tronche and Megherbi, is its appeal to a wide demographic, with fans of the show running from children the same age as the protagonist to adults. “It appeals to people’s nostalgia about their childhood, but also works well for children, who have the same age as Samuel, from 10 to 11-years-old,” says Tronche.

Despite its younger skew, the series shares similarities with Sarah Gunnarsdottír’s Oscar-nominated short film My Year of Dicks, in which a teenager goes on a voyage of discovery.

Tronche and Meghebi have yet to set a second season of Samuel, but the deal with distributor Folivari envisages new seasons and spin-offs. “With Samuel, we have the opportunity to promote high-quality content capable of growing over multiple seasons,” says Folivari International CEO Mélissa Vega. “We firmly believe in Samuel‘s potential to become a key transmedia franchise on the global stage.”

Vega has kicked off her sales campaign at the Unifrance Rendez-vous in Biarritz, with the series being showcased in the screening library, and will be taking it to other markets in the fall. France is renowned for its animation and it remains a key genre, accounting for over a quarter of all international sales, according to Unifrance, which unveiled annual stats today. However, this was down 11.2% year-over-year at €51.2M ($56.5M). There was a notably dramatic fall in animation sales to North America of 69.7%, but Folivari seems confident Samuel can turn those numbers into something more positive in 2025.

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