Keep reading this week as we preview our five top picks to watch out for at Cartoon Forum 2024, taking place in Toulouse, France from September 16 to 19. (And catch up on yesterday’s profile of Ellipse Animation’s Lost in the Future.)

After a standout performance at Cartoon Forum 2023, Paris-based La Cabane Productions and Belgian studio Thuristar have A Lamb’s Stew on the menu at this year’s annual animation pitchfest. 

This 30-minute family special may be relatively short in length in a showcase dominated by series concepts, but as fluffy protagonist Billie the lamb proves, good things really do come in small packages. This one-off’s original story follows along as Billie escapes the safety of her herd and gated pasture to explore the wilderness—where she crosses paths with an elusive wolf. 

A Lamb’s Stew was created by Thuristar writer/director Joeri Christiaen (Mush-Mush & the Mushables), with La Cabane founder Perrine Gauthier in the producer’s chair. This modern fable concept came to Christiaen when he was thinking about how influential first impressions and preconceived ideas are in the world. “I came up with a drawing where this fragile little lamb is facing a huge dark wolf, which I [expanded into] a three-page premise,” he says.

For the setting, Christiaen designed a world where animals live with their own kind in clans (around a patch of wilderness where the wolf resides) and perform species-specific tasks. For example, the bear clan harvests honey, the rabbit clan grows carrots, and the sheep clan naturally produces wool.

Billie hatches a plot to defeat the wolf by telling him that lambs are best served in a stew, which gives her an excuse to visit the other clans with him to collect ingredients. On the side, however, she’s quietly rallying them to help her set a trap for the wolf. But things take a twist as Billie gets to know him better on their culinary journey and realizes that he’s actually a good guy who has been misunderstood and ostracized. 

There are several factors that have helped A Lamb’s Stew generate early buyer interest in advance of Cartoon Forum, says Gauthier, calling out the project’s co-viewing appeal and more “stylized” CG animation as two of them. 

“The world is very rich, and there’s a lot to be said about its themes—but also from a budget and financing point of view, it makes sense to open that up,” she says, indicating that plans are underway to flesh out the special. “Several broadcasters and distributors have already asked if we are exploring the idea of a series, and the answer is yes.”

Gauthier shares that the team is envisioning a 13 x 22-minute format and thinking about how that might make it possible to explore each of the other animal clans that have such limited screen time in the special. 

Traversing the special-to-series pipeline is something La Cabane and Thuristar have excelled at. They presented Luce in the Lovely Land at Cartoon Forum 2023, where it was the best-attended pitch for a European co-production. Developed in partnership with France Télévisions and VRT-Ketnet (Belgium), this buzzy preschool toon (39 x seven minutes) is based on a 2022 short film called Luce and the Rock. La Cabane and Thuristar have just appointed CAKE to manage international distribution for the series, which is set for a 2026 delivery.