Studio Bozzetto and Sardine Productions team up for The Game Catchers

Production started on the new preschool animated series The Game Catchers (52x7’), directed at children aged 3 to 5 years old, fostering playground games. The series will be ready by the end of 2021 and is expected to air for the first time on RAI YOYO, Italy's leading public television channel for children. In Canada, SRC Radio Canada holds French-speaking rights, Toon A Vision and Knowledge Network the English-speaking rights while the Shaw Rocket Fund is on board.

Created by Studio Bozzetto, producer of the series Tip The Mouse, this new series combines 2D/3D digital animation and tells the story of a group of five friends and their interstellar journeys to explore fantastic planets, with the aim of learning about, playing and collecting games so they are never lost again. Active and engaging playground games are at the heart of each episode, along with the exploration of fun new worlds and team spirit, three core elements of the series. These fundamental elements for every child are rediscovered and enhanced, with the awareness of how much they have been set aside in recent years due to the rise of screen time amongst kids, recently accentuated by the pandemic. 

Pietro Pinetti, CEO of Studio Bozzetto, said: 'The Game Catchers is a one-of-a-kind series. No other animated series has featured playground games or the games today's adults played when they were young. It is an Italian product, the result of a team of professionals and creatives who couldn't wait to express themselves with such a creation. We have received tremendous support from our partners, whom we sincerely thank for believing in this idea. The concrete support from RAI, Radio-Canada and the collaboration with Sardine Productions make us immensely proud. We can't wait to for the final judgment of our most severe critics: the children'.

Andrea Bozzetto, Creative Director of Studio Bozzetto, and series director together with Branko Rakic, added: 'We conceived the series with the desire to bring attention back to playground games, those of the past, the ones we all grew up with, while placing them in a new and captivating context for the little ones. This is why the game "Capture the Flag" will be set on another planet and have a different name: a sci-fi mix that certainly would have had a different flavor if contextualized on Earth. Learning that after having seen an episode, the children will play the game with their friends, in their backyard or on the playground, would in fact be a wonderful 'goal achieved' for us'.

Ghislain Cyr, President of Sardine Productions, commented: 'We were charmed both by the simplicity and the richness of the original concept. As a first Italian coproduction ever for Sardine, we are blessed to be working with such a passionate & talented group of people'. And Christophe Goldberger, Managing Director of GoldBee, completed: 'We are delighted to be on board with such great partners and believe that the fantastic and highly imaginative world of The Game Catcher is based on a truly universal theme which will travel well globally'.