NFB docs sell at MIPCOM

The National Film Board moved animation and enviro-docs at MIPCOM last week, selling titles including Madame Tutli-Putli and Whale Mission: The Last Giants to casters in France, Switzerland and Spain.

The NFB closed a deal with Ushuaia TV, a new eco-minded cable and satellite channel in France, for the docs Weather Report: The Fight for True Farming and Toxic Trespass — copros with Sienna Films and If You Love Our Children, respectively — and Whale Mission, by Glacialis Productions. France’s La chaîne histoire, meanwhile, picked up the CBC copro Dead in the Water and Buried at Sea, made with Arcadia Entertainment, at the annual market last week in Cannes.

Madame Tutli-Putli — which won best short film at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year — went to Canal + France, ARTE, and Switzerland’s TSR. Canal + Spain and TSR also acquired the toon Sleeping Betty, while YLE in Finland bought three shorts from the NFB’s Talespinners children’s collection: Asthma Tech, The Girl Who Hated Books and Jaime Lo, Small and Shy.

The board also signed an agreement with France’s Institut national de l’audiovisuel to distribute the 10-part Mysteries of the Archives, a series that promises to ‘unlock the mysteries of archival footage’ for viewers, for which the NFB now has the North American distribution rights.

Two new NFB acquisitions, Statue of Liberty and The World’s Largest Studio, were bought by Italy’s Rai Uno, while Sundance Channel picked up a package of five NFB shorts along with documentaries The Blonde Mystique, produced by Canada’s Paperny Films, and Weather Report.