Jennifer Holness doc to make Canadian premiere at Hot Docs

The Hot Docs International Documentary Festival has unveiled the first 15 features selected for special presentations program, with Jennifer Holness directed and produced doc Subjects of Desire among the Canadian premieres. Produced under her Hungry Eyes Media banner with Sudz Sutherland, the documentary looks at the cultural shift in embracing Black aesthetics and will world premiere this month at SXSW.

The festival, set to run virtually from April 29 to May 9, will announce the full lineup on March 23. The world premieres announced as part of the special presentations program includes John Daschbach’s Come Back Anytime (Japan); Daniel Sivan’s Dirty Tricks (Israel); Willemiek Kluijfhout’s The Taste of Desire (Netherlands); and Yung Chang’s Wuhan Wuhan (U.S.).

Disney Junior greenlights musical series from Brown Bag Films

Brown Bag Films, the Dublin animation studio of 9 Story Media Group, is in production on a music-driven series for Disney Junior. Eureka!, which is set to premiere later this year, is a preschool series about a young inventor living in prehistoric times. The series is produced by Brown Bag Films in association with Disney Junior.

Norton Virgien and Niamh Sharkey created the series and will executive produce. Erica Rothschild helped with development and is also serving as co-executive producer and story editor. The team is rounded out by consulting producers Rusty Cundieff and Donna Brown Guillaume, along with songwriter Kari Kimmel and composer Frederik Wiedmann. Christiana McGuigan is the show’s science education consultant, Dr. Knatokie Ford advised on the original series development, and engineering experts from Disney’s Imagineering team weighed in on the inventions featured in each episode.

WOW! Unlimited eyes new animated project

WOW! Unlimited Media’s Frederator Studios has optioned the rights to develop an original animated series based on the New York Times bestselling urban fantasy novel series, The Parasol Protectorate. Written by American author Gail Carriger, the book series has sold more than one million copies, as well as being turned into graphic novels and translated into more than a dozen languages. Other titles in the series are Soulless, Changeless, Blameless, Heartless and Timeless. Wow!’s Michael Hirsh, Frederator’s Kevin Kolde and Carriger are executive producing the in-development series.

With files from Kidscreen and Realscreen