Cameras are rolling in Canada and will soon fire up in Belgium for the coming-of-age series Beyond Black Beauty.

The drama (pictured) is a Canadian/Belgian copro between Toronto’s Sinking Ship Entertainment (SSE) and Leif Films, as well as Amazon Studios. Amazon Freevee’s Pilar Golden, Leif Films’ Leif and Agnes Bristow (A Tail of Love), and SSE’s Blair Powers, Carla de Jong (Odd Squad: Mobile Unit) and J.J. Johnson (This is Daniel Cook) serve as executive producers. Production is now underway in North Bay, Ont., and will finish in Belgium in October.

In May, Amazon’s Freevee AVOD platform announced it will release the series as part of its 2023 slate, which will be available in the U.S. and the U.K. Sinking Ship holds global distribution rights except for the U.S. and the U.K.

Beyond Black Beauty, based on Anna Sewell’s novel Black Beauty, follows an Olympic-driven equestrian who has to move back to Baltimore from Belgium with her family and ends up bonding with a horse named Black Beauty.

It stars Kaya Coleman (The Sinners), Sagine Sémajuste (13: The Musical), Lisa Berry (Workin’ Moms), and Gina James (Transplant).

Leif Bristow said in a statement that children and families around the globe have experienced “the power of” Sewell’s Black Beauty in film, television and as readers, adding that “Beyond Black Beauty is the right story at this moment in history, to bring this new and inspiring series to life.”

Golden said filming in Canada and Belgium “provides a vast canvas that enriches the series’ authenticity.”

SSE’s other upcoming projects include season three of Odd Squad; its first fully 3D-animated series, Builder Brothers’ Dream Factory, in partnership with Scott Brothers Entertainment; and Jane, coproduced with the Jane Goodall Institute. The prodco hired Karine Rubin in June as its new director of sales for Europe.

Meanwhile, Leif Films is completing its Hallmark Channel film Christmas at Castle Hart in Ireland for a Nov. 27 release.

Coleman is represented by The Characters and Capstone Talent; Sémajuste and Berry are represented by Oscars Abrams Zimel & Associates; and James is represented by FilmComm Talent.

Image courtesy of Sinking Ship Entertainment