‘Escape From Pirate Asylum’.
Escape From Pirate Asylum, a new concept from the Sydney-based Pop Family Entertainment, has been named Best In Show at this year’s Asian Animation Summit in Seoul.
Co-created by Suren Perera and Thomas Duncan-Watt, the 52 x 11 minute animated comedy series was one of 25 concepts presented to an audience of the world’s major children’s broadcasters and distributors including Disney, Nickelodeon, Netflix, Entertainment One, Zodiac, Wildbrain and CBBC.
The series follows young boy (and wannabe pirate) Junicus and his haughty Orangutan tutor Lord Claude, who are wrongfully captured and imprisoned on the world’s most impenetrable island prison, Pirate Asylum. They soon realise it’s no ordinary clink and mysteries must be solved if they ever hope to escape alive.
Now in its eighth year, the Asian Animation Summit, run by Kidscreen, is an annual event designed to showcase Asia’s strongest animated projects looking for investors and partners, with an eye to that facilitating international financing and co-production connections for projects from the region.
Pop Family Entertainment’s Carmel Travers said: “We were honoured that Escape From Pirate Asylum was selected to be presented at this year’s Asian Animation Summit and grateful for the support of Screen NSW to attend. To be named Best In Show is a both testament to the calibre of the concept and a reflection of the strong international response to the show.”
Perera and Duncan-Watt said: “We knew going in that it meant pitching to the best, against the best in the industry, so not only getting into the showcase, but to be named Best In Show with such a calibre of voters is just amazing.”
Other Australian projects pitched at the summit this year were Cheeky Little Media’s Monster Teddies, Michael Griffin’s Nibling and Like A Photon Creative’s Tiny Tails.
Previous Australian Best in Show winners include Ludo Studio’s Emmy-nominated Bluey, which won in 2016. Other local projects that debuted at the Asian Animation Summit that have gone into production include Bottersnikes & Gumbles, Kuu Kuu Harajuku and Balloon Barnyard.