Zambezia was picked up by Sony Pictures for distribution in English-speaking territories and will be released in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia. It has already been screened in Israel, Austria, Switzerland, Russia and Germany. Overall the film has been sold in over 40 territories world-wide and will be released in South Africa on 26 December by Nu Metro.
The film began as a pilot in 2006 and received development funding from the National Film & Video Foundation (NFVF). Stuart Forrest, producer and CEO at Triggerfish, says that it took two years to write the script and over two and half years in production. This time frame is in line with international animated film production. Pixar Animation takes close to three years to write scripts and as long in production. For a South African animated film shot on a limited budget of $20 million and under difficult circumstance, the turnaround on The Adventures in Zambezia is a real achievement.
As with most films the real challenge was raising the budget. However from the outset, the producers wanted the film to reach a global audience and therefore decided to secure CGM, an international sales agent, based in Beverly Hills, to provide estimates on what the film could sell for. Forrest explains that this enabled them to pre-sell the film and CGM brought a gap financier on board who cash flowed the presales. The next challenge was sorting out the legal documents with the investors who included the IDC, DTI, NFVF and investors in San Francisco and Los Angeles. It took over nine months for the legal work to be finalized so that the funding could be transferred. "Surviving this was a huge challenge," says Forrest.
The Adventures in Zambezia was also the first feature film for Triggerfish, Read more....
