This year’s Cartoon Movie was the place to observe the quiet revolution in Europe — 10 new animated features were screened during the event.

There is a quiet revolution proceeding in Europe with respect to animated features. It has not yet registered on the radar screen, except perhaps with such ambitious companies as M6 of France, The Weinstein Company and Warner Bros. Germany. But the facts are beginning to speak for themselves.

Cartoon Movie is the best place to observe this. Set, as always, in Potsdam, a mere 20 minutes from Berlin, the capital of Germany, delegates were treated to a near continuous — but thankfully gentle — fall of snow throughout its three days. It did not cool the fervor of the business in hand.

Open to all European producers, and distributors and financiers worldwide — unlike the more peripatetic Cartoon Forum, which concentrates on TV series — 10 European animated features were screened. All were new. The list of films screened did not include two of the most successful recently produced European features, Oscar winner Wallace And Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit and Tim Burton’s The Corpse Bride (mostly made in London), as both had been released last year.

The opening night movie was the impressive new Asterix and the Vikings animated feature (i.e., not featuring Gerald Depardieu). It is the most expensive European financed animated movie to date, with a budget of some $30 million. This is small by U.S. standards, where some made-for-DVD features have had larger budgets. Nevertheless it marks a significant stepping-up of the ambitions of European producers. Taking what was perceived as a tired franchise, it is rare for financiers — again, at least in Europe — to attempt to stop the rot by bumping up the budget and re-thinking the aims and ambitions of the production. Full credit to M6, a French broadcaster and a part of the Bertelsmann Group. If the film is a commercial success, and reactions were generally favorable, then European producers can hopefully raise their aspirations further.

Asterix and the Vikings, a formidable co-production involving three studios played on opening night at Cartoon Movie. © 2006 M6 Studio, Mandarin SAS and 2d3D Animations. All rights reserved.

Not that there is a shortage of ambition. Asterix and the Vikings is a formidable co-production involving three studios, of which the lead animation studio is A. Film A/S, undoubtedly one of Europe’s most successful and ambitious. This studio, again working with a consortium of co-producers across Europe, also presented sequences from The Ugly Duckling and Me, now in post-production. As Karsten Killerich, its lead producer observed, this long awaited feature has had more presentations than can be counted on the fingers of one hand. In fact it has almost become a highlight of each year’s Cartoon Movie — which presentation will people go to next to be sure of being entertained by instead?

Normally such an extended development cycle suggests scripting or development problems. Judging by the scenes we saw that will not be the case here - the film has the potential to be the forerunner of a new Ice Age style franchise: genuinely comic, with stunning use of CGI. One scene in particular left its mark with me, when the two heroes, crossing a frozen pond, are attacked by a formidable pike — not quite Jaws, but enough to excite any five year old.