BONBONLAND
animated feature film
LOGLINE:
Danny, a twelve-year-old only child joins a secret spy ring with Lolli, a rebel of the same age, on an adventurous quest to confront the unscrupulous candy magnate Don Bonbon and together they rescue their children friends from the the sweetest place on Earth – BONBONLAND.
STORY:
After his parents split up, Danny moves in with his mother to his grandfather’s house. His grandfather, Henry, is a passionate botanist. Although Danny’s anxious and overprotective mum “treats” Danny to healthy, organic, sugar-free food and even regular yoga sessions at home, Danny still feels like he is in the world’s most boring cage. Danny isn’t allowed to decide almost anything for himself and is even forced to wear a helmet almost everywhere “just in case” he gets hurt… but Danny dreams of great adventures!.
Everything changes when a big fun fair, Bonbonland, unexpectedly arrives in the quiet and boring town. The fair is full of unusual attractions and, above all, an intoxicatingly sweet temptation that no child in town seems to be able to resist. Curious, Danny does not want to be left out. With a thirst for adventure, he secretly sets off to Bonbonland on his own, in search of new experiences. He meets a feisty girl named Lolli, who stops him before he can taste the fairground sweets. She reveals to him the dark side of this wonderful world. Undercover, Lolli is determined to find a way to stop the children’s intoxicating addiction to sweets and free her friends from Bonbonland. Danny seems to be the last possible member of her rescue team who has not yet succumbed to the sweet intoxication. Meanwhile, Don Bonbon is quickly gaining the loyalty and favour of the town’s children and adults thanks to the intoxicating effect of the sweets. The hordes of keen visitors to Bonbonland continue to increase. However, the sweets are in short supply, and their magic starts to wears off. Don Bonbon desperately needs a solution to win everyone’s favour once and for all.
Both Danny and Lolli have no idea that, thanks to Henry’s grandfather’s scientific research, Don Bonbon is on the trail of the magical cocoa tree of the ancient Aztecs, which would make it possible to concoct a recipe with the help of a magical, chocolatey ingredient. With it, Don Bonbon could create the most perfect and irresistible flavour, and thus win the absolute obedience of everyone once and for all.
Will Danny and Lolli be able to foil Don Bonbon’s treacherous plan and save the children from Bonbonland, or will the secret of the most perfect flavour allow Don Bonbon to gain the control and obedience of all the children and the whole town forever?
NAME
BONBONLAND
TECHNOLOGY
2D and 3D animation
LANGUAGE
Czech / English
SCREENPLAY/DIRECTION
Adam Parma
GENRE
family adventure comedy :)
STATUS
In development
DURATION
90 minutes
TYPE
Animated feature film
TARGET GROUP
6+
PRODUCTION
FILM21 s.r.o.
BONBONLAND
IN DEVELOPMENT
Animated feature film
We cannot say that developing an animated feature film is no fun :) …but we can definitely attest that it is a long haul, where sometimes you find out that some things are possible and some things are not. The development of Bonbonland started at our animation studio, FILM21, in August 2020. It continued in October 2020 at the 3-week intensive ANOMALIA StoryLab animation workshops for treatment and story development, and ConceptArtLab and CharacterLab for character and environmental development. The workshops were led by experienced mentors from Disney and Pixar. The StoryLab workshops were mentored by Robert Lence, who has worked on world-famous films such as Toy Story, Beauty and the Beast, A Bug’s Life, and more. The art workshops were conducted under the guidance of art director Rustam Hasanov, who has won Emmy Awards for his animated opening credits for the Game of Thrones series, among others. The output of the workshop was a so-called “beatboard” of 12 images and accompanying texts of the whole story, the first treatment, and a description of the main characters.
The next development phase could be summarised as “...and they wrote and wrote and wrote...” After the workshops, development continued with the rewriting of the treatment. We received valuable written feedback and analyses from sales agencies in Germany, Spain, Canada, and professional feedback from Czech dramaturges. All of them agreed on the highly attractive and globally understandable theme of the film. The feedback included a very good assessment of the intention – its global potential and “high-concept value”.
A small but significant “nudge” for our motivation to continue our work came in autumn 2021. Bonbonland was one of three animated feature films out of 53 applications to receive support from the Czech Cinematography Fund for first full-script development.
And so, in the spring of 2022, we enthusiastically signed up for the challenging programme of a full series of 6 intensive Anomalia 2.0 workshops. To clarify, these are 14-day consecutive workshops for individual implementation teams of scriptwriters, dramaturges, production designers, and storyboard artists. A total of 84 days of teamwork at the Study Centre in Český Krumlov. (:-O) The main output should be a pre-production preparation for the realisation of the film’s trailer, and an accompanying package of presentation materials to attract partners and investors for this ambitious film project. The long haul continues. We will see if the boat is coming or if we have already missed it.
2022
BE PART OF IT:)!
We are looking for B2B partners to co-finance the development of this film project, co-production partners, or partners for pre-sale and distribution.
2022
MAY
Anomalia 2.0 – Synopsis, Story, Character Design
Participation at intensive development workshop led by Len Simona /Anastazia, Klaus etc./ Synopsis consultations with Robert Lence /Disney, Beauty and the Beast, ToyStory etc./
2021
NOVEMBER
Czech Film Fund - support for script development
3 animated feature films out of 53 applications supported for script development. BONBONLAND being one of the selected projects.
2020
OCTOBER
Anomalia Story Lab, Character Lab
Within 3 intensive weeks first beatboard and treatment developed. Design of Character Line-up and several Concept Arts.
