10th Ave Productions presents its second 3D animation movie, The Christmas stocking tale, along with four related multimedia games.

“What I hope to do with our films is to make the whole world believe that all Christmas traditions originated in Quebec City,” says producer-director Nancy Savard with a smile. “And we hope that our games will help children, during the holiday period, to have fun and develop some of the skills they will need in school.”

The Christmas stocking tale tells how the tradition of the Christmas stocking began in the Old Town of Quebec City in 1870, when two mice, Kit and Tuff, had only Christmas Eve to find the ingredients they needed to cure their brother Stiff, who was seriously ill. With the help of the three orphans whom Mrs. Holts had taken in for this memorable night, they managed to avoid the terrible traps set by her son Georges and his cat, Mats. In the confusion was born the tradition of the Christmas stocking.

“Our teams have made remarkable progress between our first film, La légende du sapin de Noël, and this one,” notes Savard. “I’m particularly proud of the improved fluidity of the animation, the aesthetics of our characters, and the pace of our story. Children love the songs, and the sound environment is a match for that produced by the major studios. What’s really great is to be able to take advantage of this primary product and transform it into a world of multimedia games for kids. Since we are interested in the educational side of things, we used the guidelines of the Quebec ministry of education to design our games. We have almost completed production on the ones associated with our first movie.”

Because it wanted distribution that stands out from other animation products for L’histoire du bas de Noël, 10th Avecalled upon Paul Doucet, Dorothée Berryman, Paul Buissonneau, Edgar Fruitier, Carol Cassistat, Benoît Langlais, Stéphane Crête, Fanny Lauzier, and Marc Bélanger. The songs are performed by the singers of La Petite maîtrise de Québec and by Martin Léon and Sarah Martel. “Because the characters sang this time,” Savard emphasizes, “the degree of difficulty posed a greater challenge, which the Interstation animation team met brilliantly.”

“Télé-Québec is contributing to our development and is a very valuable partner in the regions,” Savard mentions. “We want to offer Télé-Québec a unique product tailor-made for the extraordinary programming opportunity that Ciné-Cadeau provides.”

Last year, The legend of the Christmas tree, 10th Ave’s first film, was positioned among the stars of Télé-Québec’s most-watched programs during the holiday season. The movie was also broadcast in Japan and Spain during Christmas this year.

We hope that The Christmas stocking tale will have the same success. It will be distributed by Pierre Pilotte of Vivamondo.

The Christmas stocking tale could not have been made without the support of Télé-Québec, Telefilm Canada’s Canadian Television Fund, the Shaw Fund, and SODEC. The games have received financial support from the Bell Fund and Investissement Québec.

10th Ave Productions is a production house based in Saint-Augustin-de-Desmaures, a suburb of Quebec City. It specializes in 3D animation and television production.