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\n\tEXCLUSIVE:<\/strong> Oscar-winning director Chris Landreth and Copperheart Entertainment founding head Steven Hoban will launch financing on Fifteen Dogs<\/em>, an animated adaptation of Andr\u00e9 Alexis\u2019 eponymous novel, at the European Film Market\u2019s inaugural Animation Days in February.<\/p>\n \n\tIt will be one of the first projects to participate in the EFM\u2019s new animation strand, which will run from February 12 to 14 within the framework of the Berlinale\u2019s market, with a program of project showcases and pitching sessions as well as talks, workshops and networking events.<\/p>\n \n\tCanadian film and TV company Copperheart Entertainment has recently optioned Alexis\u2019 award-winning novel about a group of dogs who are granted the gifts of human intelligence and language in a wager between two Greek Gods.<\/p>\n \n\tLandreth and Hoban are in the early stages of developing an adult-oriented animated feature that explores the nature of human consciousness.<\/p>\n \n\tCopperheart Entertainment enjoyed success in 2025 with the animated family feature Night of the Zoopocalypse<\/em>, and has boarded Fifteen Dogs<\/em> as a deliberate creative shift toward prestige, dramatic animation aimed at teen and adult audiences.<\/p>\n \n\tThe original story opens with a conversation between Hermes and Apollo over drinks in a Toronto bar on whether animals would be happier if they had the same cognitive and speech abilities as humans.<\/p>\n \n\tThey decide to grant a group of ordinary dogs these powers as a test. Suddenly aware of time, love, power, and their own mortality, the dogs struggle to navigate a world that is no longer purely instinctual, and their once-unified pack fractures into competing visions of how to live, through domination, art, faith, manipulation, and love.<\/p>\n \n\tAt the heart of the story is Majnoun, a black poodle whose emotional journey reveals the novel\u2019s central truth: that what gives life meaning is not intelligence alone, but love, belonging, and the knowledge that life inevitably ends.<\/p>\n \n\tHoban, who co-wrote Night of the Zoopocalypse<\/em>, is writing the screenplay. <\/p>\n \n\tAward-winning animation director and producer Landreth will direct, making his feature-length directorial debut after Academy Award-winning animated short Ryan<\/em> and the Oscar-nominated short The End.<\/em> <\/p>\n \n\tHe plans to use his trademark approach to animation, which has been described as \u201cpsychorealism,\u201d in which CG imagery is used to visually express the inner emotional and psychological states of characters<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cFrom the moment we read Andr\u00e9 Alexis\u2019s masterpiece, we felt it demanded a cinematic treatment that was as bold, strange, and emotionally truthful as the book itself. Chris\u2019s work has always lived at the intersection of psychology, humanity, and visual invention, and as we begin the financing stage, we\u2019re excited to introduce Fifteen Dogs to international partners who share our belief in ambitious, adult-oriented animation,\u201d said Hoban.<\/p>\n \n\tHe and Landreth previously jointly produced Ryan<\/em> and have collaborated on many of the director\u2019s award-winning animated shorts.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cFifteen Dogs<\/em> is ultimately a deeply human story, about mortality, love, curiosity, and the terror that comes with that curiosity. Animation allows us to move fluidly between realism and abstraction in ways that make those ideas felt rather than explained. This is a project that challenges me creatively in the best possible way, and I believe it has the potential to resonate powerfully with audiences around the world,\u201d said Landreth<\/p>\n \n\tThe film is produced by Hoban and Mark Smith (Night of the Zoopocalypse, In the Tall Gras<\/em>s, A Christmas Horror Story<\/em>).<\/p>\n