French BackUp gets animated over Lassie and White Fang adaptations

French financing outfit BackUp Films has announced finance deals for a slew of animation productions including a feature-length adaptation of Jack London’s classic adventure novel White Fang.

On the production front, the Paris-based film investor’s Cofanim fund aimed at animated product is investing in a feature-length, 3D version of the popular French children’s TV series Miniscule, produced by Philippe Delarue’s Futurikon based in London, Paris and comic strip hub Angouleme.

“It features animated figures set against real backdrops. It’s really well done and a huge hit with young audiences in France,” said BackUp co-founder Jean-Baptiste Babin. “The film will follow the recurring characters of the lady bug and the grass hopper. It will be in 3D and is due to start production at the end of 2011.”

Cofanim is also set to invest in the second season of TV series Nina Patalo - about a 10-year-old girl, her eccentric family and best friends Andy the duck, Patalo, a mini monster and Walter, a defrosted caveman - produced by Persepolis’ producers Je Suis Bien Content.

Babin revealed that BackUp had also just signed a deal for its Devanim development fund to invest in a seven-picture slate being put together by Super Prod, the Paris-based live action and animation house created by former Gaumont Alphanim director general Clement Calvet in 2010.

Animation projects on the slate include a feature length animated adaptation of White Fang, the animated TV series Lassie and Friends and illustrator Rébecca Dautremer’s feature-length adaptation of her own popular children’s book Elvis.

Past investments by the Cofanim fund, created in 2007, include animation features such as Enzo D’Alo’s Pinocchio and TV series such as Toon Factory’s My Friend Grompf and Moonscoop’s Casper the Friendly Ghost.