The third edition of Cartoon Movie, held in Potsdam-Babelsberg, Germany from Thursday, March 15 - Saturday, March 17, 2001, embraced a new presence. This year's newly welcomed guests? U.S. distributors. Surprised? A joint effort between AWN and Cartoon Forum, a delegation consisting of five representatives from leading American distribution companies were invited. In an effort to bring even more opportunity to its members at the already successful Cartoon Movie, this first ever U.S. delegation was invited to learn from and participate in the three days of intensive sessions, presentations and meetings.

The delegation included: Artisan Entertainment representatives, Lori Nahama, Director of Family Home Entertainment Development & Acquisitions, and Todd Schwartz, Manager of Acquisitions & Production; DreamWorks SKG's Fritz Meier; Twentieth Century Fox Feature Animation's Vice President of Production, Catherine Winder; Universal Pictures' President of Visual Programming, Hugh Rees-Parnall; and myself, delegation organizer and leader, Animation World Network President and Co-Founder Ron Diamond.

The coalition and friends. Right side of table (front to back): Catherine Winder, Todd Schwartz, Marie Beardmore, Hugh Rees-Parnall and the BBC's Colin Rose. Left side of table (front to back): Ron Diamond, Fritz Meier and Lori Nahama.

The intent behind inviting a U.S. delegation was to introduce Americans to Cartoon's unique sales marketplace, in hopes of facilitating the sale of European features to the U.S. mainstream theatrical market. The delegation attended most of the sessions and despite the lack of immediate commitments, valuable contacts were made and many European producers went away with strong U.S. contacts.

The bustle of Cartoon Forum. Photo courtesy of and © Cartoon, the European Association of Animation Film.

The six person delegation was interviewed privately by the Cartoon organizers about their candid impressions. The collective opinion was that the event was extremely well organized and that it was the best of its kind. This is due primarily to the positive nature of the presentation sessions, the excellent moderators and preparedness of the producers. What kept these distributors from signing on the bottom line was the level of productions presented did not compete with the sophistication of the American marketplace. This is not to say the stories or the production values were less then marketable, but it was discussed that the majors' approach to the theatrical release of animated feature films in the U.S. was only open to anticipated blockbuster successes. The leading U.S. distribution companies were not interested in releasing movies that had a maximum potential of earning only 25 to 50 million U.S. dollars.