France’s Autour de Minuit, behind Academy Award-winning animated short “Logorama,” and Spamflix, a burgeoning force in Portuguese animation production and distribution, have boarded Brazilian filmmaker and cinematographer Erick Ricco’s “The March of the Sunflowers,” one of the animation highlights at this week’s Bogotá Audiovisual Market (BAM).
Already working up an industry fanbase at December’s Animation! In Ventana Sur, “The March of the Sunflowers” hits BAM as one of its buzziest animation projects, a joint production between Ricco’s Tuba Studio and Ricco Filmes, both based in Belo Horizonte, the capital city of Brazil’s southeastern state of Minas Gerais, and producer Ivan Melo’s Cup Filmes in São Paulo. Autour de Minuit and Spamflix have now joined the project as co-production partners.
In the animated feature, when the sun fails to rise after her family loses their only rooster, 9-year-old Marialice sets off with her loyal chick, Marques, following a march of sunflowers across Brazil’s magical backlands. Along the way, she encounters talking animals, living shadows and mythical creatures, discovering the courage to bring daylight back to the world.
Aimed at children aged 6 to 9 and family audiences, the stop-motion animated fantasy adventure is currently in pre-production and scheduled to begin shooting in 2027.
