Maria Kennedy is owner and co-founder of Little Engine Moving Pictures, an independent Canadian entertainment company that specializes in the development, production and distribution of original, innovative live-action and animated series and companion interactive content for a global audience of kids and family. Her expertise lies in creating strategic equity partnerships through financing and pre-sales of original series in development, assembling world class creative teams to produce premium series like Tiny and Tall, Cutie Pugs, Now You Know and Canada Crew and distributing award-winning third-party series like Imagine Create Media’s TheGumboot Kids, Baby Baby, Space Kids and I Love, and Mango Moon Productions’ The Smack Dab In the Middle of the Day Show. Maria and the Little Engine team have forged strong partnerships with TVO, CBC, CBC Gem, TFO, Knowledge Kids and SRC Radio-Canada, and funding agencies Shaw Rocket Fund, Bell Fund, Rogers Telefund, CMF Canada Media Fund and Ontario Creates. Little Engine has won Kidscreen, Youth Media Alliance, W3 Marketing, Toronto International Film Festival Best Short Film, and Berlinale Best Short Film awards, and they’ve been nominated for Prix Jeunesse Germany and BANFF International Pilot Competition Awards. Their distribution division has sold to networks, streamers and AVOD/SVODs like ABC Kids (Australia), Starz Kids (US), VMe (US/Mexico/South America), SuperRTL (Germany), Daekyo (South Korea), Hop! TV (Israel), Hopster (United Kingdom), AMC Networks International (EMEA), and across Latin America. Little Engine’s catalogue has been versioned to French, Hebrew, Korean, Chinese, Spanish and German. Maria is on the Youth Media Alliance board of directors, as well as the Centennial College Program Advisory Committee (PAC). BIPOC woman owned and led by Maria and head of creative, Ben Mazzotta, Little Engine advocates gender, BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ equality, and champions equity in the workplace.
