Oscar-Nominated Cartoon Saloon, Angelina Jolie Pitt Team With WestEnd on ‘The Breadwinner’ (EXCLUSIVE)
International sales agent and financier WestEnd Films has teamed up once again with Irish studio Cartoon Saloon following their successful partnership on Oscar-nominated animated movie “Song of the Sea.” This time they are working together on “The Breadwinner,” which is produced in association with Angelina Jolie Pitt’s Jolie Pas Prods. WestEnd will be introducing the film to buyers in Toronto.
“The Breadwinner” centers on a young Afghan girl who cuts her hair and disguises herself as a boy in order to support her family after the Taliban imprison her father. It is based on Deborah Ellis’ novel, which has sold 2.5 million copies worldwide across 25 languages. Ellis wrote the film’s screenplay with Anita Doron.
The film is directed by Nora Twomey, co-director of animated-feature Oscar-nominee “The Secret of Kells,” and is a co-production between Canada’s Aircraft Pictures, Ireland’s Cartoon Saloon and Luxembourg’s Melusine Prods. Aircraft’s Anthony Leo and Andrew Rosen, Cartoon Saloon’s Tomm Moore and Paul Young, and Melusine’s Stephan Roelants are producing.
The pic will be distributed by Elevation Pictures in Canada, GKids in the U.S., and Studiocanal in the U.K. and Ireland. It is scheduled to be completed next year and released in North America by the end of 2017.
The pic’s voice talent includes Saara Chaudry (“Max & Shred”), Soma Bhatia (“Degrassi: Next Class”), Laara Sadiq (“Remedy”), and Ali Badshah (“The Cat in the Hat”), along with Afghan actors such as Kawa Ada (“Jihad Gigilo”), Shaista Latif (“This Is the Life”), and Noorin Gulamgaus (“Robocop”).
“The Breadwinner” is produced with the financial participation of Telefilm Canada and the Talent Fund, the Irish Film Board, Film Fund Luxembourg, Gaia Entertainment, The Shaw Rocket Fund, Artemis Rising Foundation, The Broadcast Authority of Ireland, The Ontario Media Development Corporation, The Harold Greenberg Fund, RTE, The Movie Network, a division of Bell Media, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the Canadian Film or Video Production Tax Credit, and the Ontario Film and Television Tax Credit.
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