The Cartoon Forum hands out its Tributes
- Folimage, 9 Story Distribution and YLE have been given pride of place at the 29th edition of the co-production platform dedicated to European animated series
Handed out each year to producers, investors/distributors and broadcasters deemed to have had a dynamic and positive influence on the European animation industry, the Cartoon Tributes were dished out yesterday in Toulouse during the fourth and final day of the 29th edition of the Cartoon Forum, the only co-production platform dedicated to European animated series.
In the producers category, it was French studio Folimage (which belongs to the Hildegarde group), a specialist in 2D and stop-motion animation for TV series, short films and features, that came out on top. This year, the company presented three projects in the Cartoon Forum: the standalone Looking for Santa (a 26-minute animation produced together with Belgium’s Lunanime), and the series We Are the Artists (52 episodes of 13 minutes, produced with Paris-based outfit Ex Nihilo) and Maëlys Mysteries (26 episodes of 11 minutes, produced with Belgium’s Panique ! and Switzerland’s Nadasdy Film). The other nominees included Germany’s Akkord Film Produktion, Spain’s Ánima Kitchent Media, Finland’s Ink and Light and the UK’s The Illuminated Film Company.
The Distributor Cartoon Tribute went to the go-getting Irish firm 9 Story Distribution International, whose catalogue includes more than 2,500 half-hours of animated and non-animated programmes. Other nominees included Italy’s Connectoon, and France’s Gaumont Distribution TV and Miam ! Animation.
The Broadcaster Award was bestowed upon Finnish public television group YLE, whose TV2 channel offers more than 1,000 hours of programmes for the 2-12 age range, and which has adopted a very solid co-production strategy that is hugely beneficial to the growth of local animation – such as the recent titles Gigglebug and Albi the Snowman. Other hopefuls included Italy’s Deakids, the UK’s Hopster, the USA’s Netflix and France’s TF1 Unité Jeunesse.
Interestingly, Finland, the country in the spotlight this year at the Cartoon Forum, is riding high on world-renowned animation brands, such as The Moomins, The Flight Before Christmas and Angry Birds.
The 2018 edition of the Cartoon Forum presented 83 unreleased projects hailing from 22 European countries to 950 producers, investors, distributors, buyers and SvoD/VoD platforms (including Netflix, Amazon and Hopster). Almost half of these projects are aimed at a child audience, one-third at the preschool target market, and 10% at adults and young adults.
(Translated from French)
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