Alberta-based producer Gerri Cook is not sure her environmentally friendly series can save the planet, but she is certain that it will help to entertain it.

Cook has joined forces with Aboriginal producer Greg Coyes (Scorched Wood Productions) and Ava Karvonen (Reel Girls Media) to create Storytellers Productions. The trio will be participating in the Banff Television Festival’s Market Simulation this year, pitching the potential animated series known as Stories from the Seventh Fire.

An inter-provincial coproduction (Karvonen and Cook represent Alberta, while Coyes hails from b.c.), the concept for the Stories from the Seventh Fire series is based on an Ojibway prophecy that says some of the old stories will some day be retold and as a result people will once again learn to live in harmony with Mother Earth.

The pilot has won several awards to date and Cook says it is ready to evolve into a series, with Storytellers currently finishing the financing on three new half-hour episodes, budgeted at approximately $400,000 each.

Stories from the Seventh Fire includes two parts to every episode. The first element is a retelling of a spiritual legend and features animation by Aboriginal artist Norval Morrisseau. The second element will feature a 3D animated mother wolf retelling tales inspired by West Coast animal legends to her cubs before they go to sleep. The stories will be brought to life on screen with the help of wildlife footage amassed by cinematographer Albert Karvonen (producer Ava’s father).

‘What we’ve done is use some of his wildlife footage to tell the story from the point of view of the animals,’ says Cook. ‘We’ve combined a legend from the perspective of human beings and a legend from the perspective of animals in one overall wraparound, which is also animated.’

The 2D animation for Stories from the Seventh Fire is being handled by Bardel in Vancouver, while the 3D animation, including the aforementioned wolf, is a product of Bioware in Edmonton, which is traditionally a games company.

Cook estimates she has made the trek to the Banff Television Festival nearly a dozen times. She is extremely hopeful that her latest potential series will be seen by the right people at the festival.

‘We are hoping to see if we can attract an off-shore presale for the next three [episodes] and interest in going into a series,’ says Cook. ‘Our pilot has been winning awards and doing really well at festivals over this year and we just want to keep going.’

Banff Television Festival president and ceo Pat Ferns has added Stories from the Seventh Fire to the Market Simulation on the Tuesday of the festival, in the drama/entertainment section.

‘It will be interesting to see who is in the audience,’ says Cook. ‘[Ferns] feels this show is not just children’s programming, and he is right. It is really family programming, so what we’ll do is wait and see what happens in the pitch and who is in the audience.’

Cook says that she and her partners on Stories from the Seventh Fire hope to attract some international attention at the festival, specifically from Australia, Germany, Japan and the u.s.

‘Part of what we are pitching is that this series could be much broader,’ says Cook. ‘We will not just be doing North American First Nations stories, because there are first nations people around the world.’