Sara and Marti to Premiere Second Season

The second season of Sara and Marti, a children’s series produced by Stand by Me, is slated to make its debut on Disney Channel in Italy on January 21.

Sara and Marti follows the titular sisters as they settle into a small medieval village in Umbria after moving there from London with their father. The all-Italian live-action production is largely unscripted, leaving the young actors to act spontaneously and improvise. In addition to the series’ second season, Sara and Marti: The Movie will bow in Italian theatres on March 14.

ETS Studios has licensed the Sara and Marti brand in publishing and in the food industry, including the book Sara and Marti: Londra, restare o tornare for Mondadori Electa and Walcor’s Easter Eggs. International distribution could be in the brand’s future.

“I am very happy with the success of Sara and Marti, which was our first production of a kids show,” said Simona Ercolani, CEO and creative producer at Stand by Me. “We have combined our experience of telling real-life stories with Disney’s in-depth knowledge of its audience. Youngsters are a fantastic audience: when they like a story, they get passionate about it with an enthusiasm that adults no longer have. They asked for the second season and we are not only delivering that, but we’re also working on a film with an entirely new plot that tells the story of the two sisters on vacation in Sicily.”

Ercolani adds: “Both in the second season and in the movie, we have used the technique of the ‘constructed reality’, where the protagonists share their thoughts directly to the camera and the acting, although guided by a script, is mostly improvised.”