Montreal, Canada based prodco Sardine Productions is bringing two productions it hopes will find sea legs at Mip Jr. next month in Cannes.

The newest series is Manon is a 52 x seven-minute CGI series and international co-production with France-based Cyber-Groupe Animation and Planet Nemo. Based on a book property, international distributor Cyber-Groupe has already sewed up presales with TV2Norway, Walt Disney Latin America, V-Me USA and Al Jazeera Children’s Channel along with others. It will be delivered by the end of this year.

Also on-board for the trip is the second season of the Flash one-minute non-dialogue HD series Leon. With 52 eps already in the can, Sardine has received the greenlight to produce 52 more for Canadian pubcaster CBC and Radio-Canada and is aiming to deliver them by Q1 2009.

‘We are looking to do a full branding of Leon as a character,’ says Sardine president Ghislain Cyr. ‘We are currently developing licensing and merchandising program to complement the series.’

In that vein, the company produced 13 games based on the character and a series of Olympic-themed webisodes. The first rollout of Leon merch is scheduled for next month in SRC stores across Quebec. But, with broadcast sales sealed for Disney (Japan), Astro (Malaysia), Muv TV (Russia) and RTV (Slovenia) and mobile rights sold to Jump in Ukraine, Cyr will be working Mip Jr. to find the right L& M partners with an international scope.

‘Since it’s a mute series it has been easy to sell internationally,’ says Cyr. ‘I think the humour is understood by everyone.’