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Triggerfish Announces ‘Seal Team’ Feature Ahead of Annecy

South Africa-based company also has the short film ‘Belly Flop’ screening during the festival’s closing ceremony and ‘The Highway Rat’ TV special, which it animated for Magic Light Pictures, is in competition.

South Africa-based Triggerfish announced production has begun on ‘Seal Team,’ its third animated feature.

CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA -- Triggerfish will have a strong representation at this year’s Annecy International Animated Film Festival, where it is announcing its third feature film, Seal Team, and has two films screening in the festival’s official selection.

Triggerfish has just started production on the action-comedy Seal Team, which follows an orphan seal, Quinn, who has been dodging sharks off the coast of South Africa his whole life. When he loses his best friend to a great white shark, Quinn forms a ragtag special ops unit and does the unthinkable: fights back!

Triggerfish’s first two features -- Adventures in Zambezia (2012) and Khumba (2013) -- are two of the five highest-grossing South African feature films of all time, with a combined worldwide theatrical box-office of more than $ 50 million US. Khumba competed at Annecy in 2013, with the two films winning nine international awards.  

The Industrial Development Corp., the Department of Trade and Industry, and Cinema Management Group are financing Seal Team, which has pre-sold in more than a dozen territories. 

Greig Cameron will make his feature film debut as Seal Team’s writer-director, working from an original story and screenplay by Brian and Jason Cleveland and Wayne Thornley (Adventures in Zambezia), with Anthony Silverston (Khumba) as head of development.

Triggerfish’s ‘Belly Flop’ is screening at the closing ceremony of the 2018 Annecy International Animated Film Festival.

The Triggerfish short film Belly Flop, co-directed by Jeremy Collins and Kelly Dillon, will screen at Annecy during the closing ceremony. The film is about Penny, a young girl learning to dive who is frustrated when a talented contender with a flair for showing off steals the spotlight. Dillon won an internal scriptwriting competition at Triggerfish in 2011, with the five-minute short being made as a passion project at the studio over the last seven years. The trailer can be seen on Vimeo.

‘The Highway Rat,’ animated by Triggerfish for Magic Light Pictures, is competing in the Best TV Film category at the 2018 Annecy International Animated Film Festival.

The Highway Rat, animated at Triggerfish for Magic Light Pictures, is competing for Best TV Film at Annecy. This is the third year in a row that a Magic Light Pictures production with animation from Triggerfish is in line for the award. Their previous collaborations -- Revolting Rhymes and Stick Man -- won the Grand Cristal Award in Annecy for TV in 2017 and 2016 respectively. 

An adaptation of Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler’s bestseller, The Highway Rat is a swashbuckling tale of a greedy rat who craves buns and biscuits and comes to a sticky end. People’s Choice winner David Tennant (Doctor WhoBroadchurch) leads the cast in the title role. After screening to 7.5 million people over Christmas on the BBC, The Highway Rat  won the audience award for ages 3 to 6 at the New York International Children's Film Festival.

Additionally, Anthony Silverston, Triggerfish’s head of development, is on “The New Territories of International Animation” panel at Annecy.

Source: Triggerfish Animation

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Tom McLean has been writing for years about animation from a secret base in Los Angeles.