LevelK draws ‘Betty Balloon’, by Puk Grasten, a cartoon title

An early launch of Puk Grasten’s ‘Betty Balloon’ has already been secured, as Copenhagen-based international sales and aggregation house LevelK has secured global rights to the upcoming animated film and TV series for preschoolers.

The agreement, brokered between LevelK CEO Tine Klint and the film’s lead producer Regner Grasten, was reached just before the project’s work-in-progress presentation at Cartoon Movie in Bordeaux, LevelK said. Variety.

A theatrical release of the animated film is planned for October in Denmark, with Danish public broadcaster TV2 premiering the series.

A Danish co-production between Regner Grasten Filmproduktion and A. Film Production, “Betty Balloon” follows a modern family who happen to be… balloons.

At the center of the story is Betty, a creative and imaginative four-year-old. Life is turned upside down when a cactus family moves in next door. The Balloon family (mom, dad and Betty’s big brother Bobby) must learn to connect with their new neighbors. But in “Betty Balloon,” it’s the kids who lead the way, as Betty quickly becomes best friends with four-year-old Kaj Cactus, proving that curiosity and openness can bridge even the most difficult divide. In this colorful universe, it’s the kids who show the adults how to connect.

“In ‘Betty Balloon’ the unknown is not dangerous,” explains director Puk Grasten, who also wrote and filmed the story. “It’s an invitation to open up to the film [as well as the series] celebrates openness, imagination and emotional honesty,” as well as creativity and curiosity in a gentle 2D computer animation style sure to appeal to preschool audiences.

Grasten, an alumnus of the European Film College/EICAR/NYU Tisch, received the Danish Arts Foundation Award for Outstanding Cinematic Work and the Carl Th. Dreyer Award for Visual Storytelling for her feature film debut ’37’. “Betty Balloon” is her third feature film and her first venture into animation.

‘Betty Balloon’, a fun and enjoyable adventure driven by women, is still very relevant today and invites children and parents to openness and acceptance through the unlikely friendship between a balloon and a cactus. Values ​​that both toddlers and adults can identify with, underlines producer Regner Grasten. “This dynamic stands out from the more traditional family setups seen in shows like ‘Peppa Pig’ and ‘Bluey,’ and offers an alternative vision of community and empathy.”

“Teaching through entertainment is indeed important,” added Tine Klint, CEO of LevelK, “and as Betty Balloon and Kaj Cactus have to deal with the challenges of living side by side, becoming friends and just being who they are, their creative minds make the journey fun.”

That is an approach that fits perfectly with LevelK’s values ​​and ambitions. A few weeks ago in Berlin, the company presented “Everyone’s Sorry Today” (Generation Kplus), “Dust” (main competition) and titles such as “Chasing Millions” and the animated film “Mumbo Jumbo”, an A. Film production project.

Regner Grasten Filmproduktion, one of Denmark’s largest production companies, boasts a catalog of 45 films with a total of more than 14 million cinema admissions to date. The company also produced the popular TV Christmas series “The Crumbs’ Christmas” (Krummernes July, 1996) and “The Mortensen Brothers’ Christmas” (Brødrene Mortensens July, 1998) for TV2 Denmark, and several of the company’s productions have been sold worldwide.

In addition to the feature film and TV series, “Betty Balloon” books and merchandising lines are also being developed, further amplifying this innovative and heartfelt IP in the making.