Although Cartoon just held its 17th forum in Pau (above), the future of the conference and the Cartoon organization will be discussed during the next few months. All Cartoon Forum images courtesy of Cartoon.

The future shape of Cartoon Forum and all aspects of the Cartoon organization — the European Association of Animation —will be under discussion during the next few months.

Cartoon was originally set up in Rome after a meeting in 1989 of 60 European animation producers and broadcasters. The first Cartoon Forum was then staged the following year and has since become an essential element of the European animation calendar — with the 17th Forum having just taken place in Pau in the French Pyrenees.

Now it is felt that the industry and its technical horizons have changed so much that the time has come for a second animation summit. This will be staged in November with representatives from all member states of the European Union meeting in Bavaria.

“We felt it was time to organize a meeting to re-assess the business. Things are changing so fast — the market has changed very much even over the past two years,” said Cartoon director Corinne Jenart.

The Cartoon Forum aims to accelerate the time taken by producers to move from concept to production by providing a means to present new projects to broadcasters, distributors and other potential buyers in a series of presentations. A first step was taken this year to improve the overall standard of presentations by reducing the number of selected projects from 72 to 60. Of these, 25 reported that financing would now be complete in the short-term — representing a total budget of €100 million in successful series.

Another first this time was the inauguration of the Cartoon Tributes — three awards voted by the participants. Broadcaster of the year was BBC Children’s (U.K.), distributor of the year was Icon Animation (Spain) and producer of the year was A Film (Denmark).

“The Forum is definitely making it easier for European producers to make animation — I really don’t know what the business would have been like without Cartoon Forum,” said A Film director Karsten Kiilerich.

The Forum inaugurated Cartoon Tributes. Voted by participants. Broadcaster of the year was BBC Children’s (U.K.), distributor of the year was Icon Animation (Spain) and producer of the year was A Film (Denmark).

“Animation is hugely important to us — we find that the access to ideas that we get here is unparalleled,” added BBC’s Jesse Cleverly. The closing evening also saw the award of this year’s Cartoon D’Or to Joanna Quinn of the U.K. for her short film Dreams and Desires — Family Ties. The jury of Didier Bruner (France), Michael Dudok de Wit (U.K./Netherlands) and José Miguel Ribeiro (Portugal) made their selection from nominees put forward by animation festivals throughout Europe in the past year.

The most popular projects pitched in terms of attendance were Pocket Rockets from Millimages (France/U.K.) and Toons ‘N’ Tales (Germany), Bingo Bongo from Lobster Films (France), JetMedia (Latvia) and Sofidoc (Belgium), Jeremy from Futurikon (France), High Spy from Alphanim (France) and The Annoying Thing from The League Of Good People (Germany) and Kaktus Film (Sweden).

Bingo Bongo was presented by Serge Bromberg of Lobster Films — also artistic director of the Annecy Film Festival. It’s a wild 26x6 series of animal gags in the tradition of Tom and Jerry or Loony Tunes. Directed by Frederico Vitali, it has already been picked up by France’s Canal + and looks certain to go into production soon. Total budget is €1.5 million.