The Breteau Foundation Joins Forces with Animation Studios ZAG and On Kids & Family (Mediawan Group), Producers of Miraculous – Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir, for a Special Episode on Tackling Plastic Use 

London, UK/Paris, France/Santa Monica, CA  – International non-profit The Breteau Foundation–which provides quality education tools to disadvantaged children worldwide–has announced a partnership with award-winning global independent animation studios ZAG and ON kids & Family (Mediawan Group) to collaborate on a special episode of the global hit animated series Miraculous – Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir to raise awareness about the global plastic crisis.  To be released in spring 2023, the episode, which will reach millions of Miraculous fans around the globe, seeks to inspire the next generation to be sustainable changemakers in the fight against plastic.

In this special episode, Marinette, Adrien and their friends want to actively fight plastic pollution in Paris, but as a small group, the task seems just too enormous. It occurs to Marinette that they should try to fix the problem at the root, by trying to meet with the largest plastic manufacturer in person and convince him to change his habits. But the heroes are about to meet an opponent in plain clothes far more fearsome than some of the supervillains they encounter! And what if, on top of that, Monarch, the super villain, decides to akumatize the baron of plastic?

The Breteau Foundation initiated the collaboration with ZAG and ON kids & family (Mediawan Group) in 2020 after searching for an entertainment partner with a strong presence among children. ZAG and ON kids & family (Mediawan Group) are producing the special episode on reducing plastic, and the Breteau Foundation will work with them to enhance the script with key educational messages. Furthermore, the Breteau Foundation is developing an accompanying series of workshops that will include lesson plans, teaching resources and STEAM learning tools catered to local primary school curriculum and available to download for free.

“At the Breteau Foundation, we believe in providing opportunities for children to become engaged in real world issues that transcend classroom walls. Partnering with Miraculous Ladybug to produce a special episode on plastic was a unique opportunity for us to reach millions of children worldwide to raise awareness on the Global Plastic Crisis and inspire them to become active changemakers,” commented Sebastien Breteau, Founder of the Breteau Foundation.

“We are sensitive to ecology and environmental protection through the actions we plan to launch shortly within our future foundation ZAG Forest. In this context, it seemed obvious to us to participate in the initiative of the Breteau Foundation and to put our heroes at the service of this cause. Ladybug and Cat Noir are the best ambassadors of tomorrow’s issues and will be able to accompany children in their ability to create a better world,” adds Jeremy Zag, Founder and CEO, ZAG.

“We are very happy to get involved with the Breteau Foundation in an absolutely essential initiative: to enable our children to be aware of current issues and to protect the future of the planet. This message will be all the more powerful as it is carried by Ladybug, a heroine as famous as she is aspirational. The DNA of our series and the values it conveys are naturally in line with the issues defended by the Breteau Foundation,” declares Aton Soumache, Founder and President of ON Kids & Family.

The educational film and workshops will be accessible for free on the Breteau Foundation website in spring 2023, available initially in six languages:  English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian and Norwegian.

This approach is also part of a global dynamic of the Mediawan group, which wishes to commit itself fully in the upcoming months to measuring the impact of its activities on the environment.

About the Breteau Foundation

Established in 2014, the Breteau Foundation is a global non-profit organization that has provided quality and inclusive education to the most disadvantaged primary schools and children in 11 countries worldwide. We specialise in EdTech; providing schools with computer tablets loaded with world-class apps that are aligned to local languages & national curriculums.  We also deliver extensive teacher training & strategic support to school leaders to build capability & confidence so that schools are autonomous  in 2 years.

In direct response to the Covid pandemic, the Foundation has diversified its response to include literacy and numeracy-based tablet programs for offline learning at home, a STEAM (Science, engineering, technology Arts & Maths) programme to support at home learning that encourage students to use problem solving, creativity, entrepreneurship and teamwork to create solutions to real-world problems.

We give children and families hope, insight to the world via technology with more opportunity and pathways to brighter futures.

About Miraculous™: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir 

The 3D-CGI-animated superhero aspirational action-comedy series Miraculous™: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir, created by ZAG and co-produced with ON kids & family (Mediawan Group), follows the adventures of two seemingly typical teens with secret identities, Marinette and Adrien, who magically transform into superheroes, Ladybug and Cat Noir. As secret superheroes, Ladybug and Cat Noir are partners in the action. But in the daytime, Marinette is just a normal girl, living a normal life. Cat Noir will do anything to support and impress Ladybug, but does not know this is Marinette from his class. Marinette, the regular girl, in turn dreams of Adrien and simply gets little response. When evil threatens Paris, their beloved City of Lights, can they beat the unexpected villains?

Miraculous™ is everyone’s superhero story. The series is ranked by IMDB amongst the Top 10 Best Animated Shows in the last 20 years.  Season four of the Miraculous™: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir animated TV series started to roll out in over 120 countries across the globe during spring/summer 2021, and ZAG is currently in production on season five of the series to launch fall 2022.  With a massive fan base of young adult “Miraculers,” (ages 15-25), Miraculous has become a digital planetary craze with over 30 billion views on YouTube (authorized and user-generated content).  Miraculous is the winner of 25 awards, including the 2018 Teen Choice Award for Choice Animated Series.

About ZAG

ZAG America, LLC is a global independent entertainment studio specializing in world-class storytelling across TV, film, and digital platforms. ZAG’s foundation is rooted in compelling characters, limitless imagination, and masterful storytelling infused with original musical scores. The company is home to world-class entertainment properties under the ZAG HEROEZ label, including Miraculous™: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir as well as new titles Power Players (2019) and Ghost Force (2021). Visionary director and composer Jeremy Zag founded the Zag Kids and Family Entertainment Group in France in 2009, further expanding the company to the USA in 2012 with the Global Brand Franchise office in Santa Monica, California. Based in Paris, the creative headquarters, known as the “ZAG Lab,” focuses on developing engaging stories beyond the screen into brands that inspire the new generation to discover their true character.  https://www.zag.com About ON kids & family

Cofounded by Aton Soumache, Dimitri Rassam, and Thierry Pasquet, ON kids & family is an independent European studio with global outreach in the production of animated content for kids and family, mainly television series and feature films created for diverse and international audiences. With about 500 collaborators in Paris, Montreal, Los Angeles and Luxembourg, ON kids & family unites creators and partners from all around the world. Together, they develop brands with different formats: animated series and feature films, licensing and merchandising, digital platforms and content. The Group combines innovation, technology, and international talents to bring magical and extraordinary universes to kids and families through its numerous productions, such as THE LITTLE PRINCE, MIRACULOUS, LITTLE NICK, TALL TALES or ROBIN HOOD, which attracted record-breaking audiences and are a big global success. ON kids & family also produced the animated feature film PLAYMOBIL: THE MOVIE, directed by Lino DiSalvo (Pathé Distribution). In 2019, the company, together with the acclaimed author Joann Sfar, created Joann Sfar’s Magical Society, which is dedicated to the development of the author’s universes. The first fruit of this collaboration was the release of LITTLE VAMPIRE, on October 21st 2020. In June 2018, ON kids & family joined the Mediawan Group.

About Mediawan

Created in late 2015 by Pierre-Antoine Capton, Xavier Niel and Matthieu Pigasse, Mediawan is one of the main independent European studios producing audiovisual content. The Group brings together best-in- class talents in audiovisual creation by operating on the entire value chain: production of drama, unscripted, documentary, cinema and animated original content, thanks to over 50 production labels in France, Italy, Spain, England, the Netherlands, Finland and Senegal (Mediawan Studios) distribution of audiovisual content (Mediawan Rights, LS Distribution and Telmondis Distribution) and publishing of channels and digital services (Mediawan Thematics) as well as the development and production of digital content (Mediawan Digital Studios). For the past year, Mediawan, in partnership with LEONINE STUDIOS, has been a major independent player in the production and distribution of content in Europe.