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CARTOON Movie Announces 2016 Program & Dates

With 55 projects from 19 European countries selected to date for European pitching event, more than 700 animation film professionals are set to gather March 2-4 in Lyon, France.

Lyon is set to become the European capital of animation film: more than 700 animated feature film producers, investors, distributors, sales agents, video game companies and new media players from all of Europe and beyond will attend the 18th CARTOON Movie to create partnerships and co-productions, allowing the funding of around 20 animated feature films per year in Europe. The event is set to run March 204, 2016 in Lyons, France.

The CARTOON Games will take place on Wednesday, March 2, just before CARTOON Movie. Organized in collaboration with the Imaginove cluster, these meetings aim to foster partnerships upstream between animation producers and video game companies. The event consists of 20-minute matchmaking sessions between animation film producers and video game companies with the aim to encourage the players of both worlds to develop a common project both as a feature film and video game.

Running alongside CARTOON Movie, 30 cinemas from the GRAC network will present the best recent European animation films to the general public of la Métropole de Lyon beginning February 13 through March 4.

Famous directors to present their new films at CARTOON Movie

Among the projects in production, professionals will be able to enjoy the first images of Richard the Stork (Knudsen & Streuber Medienmanufaktur) by Reza Memari and Toby Genkel (director of Ooops! Noah is gone...), Cinderella the Cat (MAD Entertainment) by Ivan Cappiello, Marino Guarnieri, Alessandro Rak & Dario Sansone. Alessandro Rak (The Art of Happiness, Best European Animated Feature Film at EFA 2014) will also defend its project A Skeleton Story.

The filmmakers also reveal several projects in concept such as Canaan (Tondo Films) by Jan Bultheel who brightly uses motion capture like his film Cafard, Little Bastards (Rokyn Animation) by Manuel Sicilia (Justin and the Knights of Valour, The Missing Lynx and The Tell Tale Heart) and Old Man Coyote (Cinemon Entertainment) by Áron Gauder (The District).

As for Anca Damian (director of The Magic Mountain and Crulic: The Path to Beyond, a biographical movie), she participates in the making of two films: The Fantastic Voyage of Marona (Sacrebleu Productions) which uses rotoscoping as animation technique and The Faun in coproduction with JPL Films. The director, Augusto Zanovello, is known for the short film Women’s letters (nominated for the CARTOON d’Or 2013).

Participants will also discover The Prince of the City of Sand (Iris Productions), the latest opus from Italian director Enzo d’Alò (Lucky and Zorba, How the Toys Saved Christmas and Pinocchio).

A record number of animated projects for teenagers and adults

For several years, the trend of adult-skewed films in European animation is growing. In 2016, a record is achieved: nearly 33 percent of the selected projects targeting audiences of teenagers and adults also tackle political or sensitive subjects ranging from child soldiers in Angola (Another Day of Life by Platige Image and based on the book of the reporter Ryszard Kapuściński), the Khmer Rouge era in Cambodia (Funan, the new people by Les Films d’Ici), political resistance in Iran (The Siren by Les Films d'Ici), adoption (The Khmer Smile by Animalps Productions), the civil war in Angola (Nayola by da Praça de Filmes). Other projects include a narrative project about the near future of Rio de Janeiro inspired by the work of Joseph Conrad (Heart of Darkness by Les Films d'Ici) and a psychotic thriller about the confinements of reality based on the eponymous online graphic novel (Mind My Gap from Studio Rosto).

Meanwhile, family comedies and adventure films for children are not left out: The Journey of the Elephant Soliman (Studio88 Werbe-und Trickfilm) which tells the story of an elephant accompanying the return of Spanish Governor in its regions of Vienna in 1851; adventure film Hieronymus (BosBros) inspired by Hieronymus Bosch, the painter; and Little Jules Verne (Enormous Pictures), which relates the story of a small 12-year-old boy as told by his grandfather, Jules Verne himself.

Literature and comic books continue to be a significant source of inspiration for European animation. This year’s selection ranges from adaptations by well-known authors such as Edgar Allan Poe (Extraordinary Tales by Mélusine Productions) and Michel Kichka (Second Generation by Stephan Films) or comic books such as SamSam the Tiniest Superhero (Folivari) inspired also by a French television series in 3D and created from characters of Serge Bloch for Pomme d’Api, magazine for kids (3-7 years) of Bayard Press group and Mutafukaz directed by Guillaume Renard et produced by Ankama Animation (Dofus - Book 1: Julith will release in France on February 3).

New this year: one Canadian project will be presented at CARTOON Movie in order to expand the collaboration established at CARTOON Connection Canada. Amoeba (House of Cool) has been selected by several European broadcasters present in October 2015: CBBC-BBC Children's UK, France Télévisions, Walt Disney UK, YLE Finland, Channel 5 - milkshake! UK and Canal+ France.

To date, 55 projects from 19 European countries have been selected to be pitched at CARTOON Movie: 23 of them are in concept, 21 in development, eight in production and two are completed films. France will be represented by 18 projects, followed by Denmark and Germany with 5 each, Italy, Netherlands & Poland with three each. The variety of countries producing animated films is still growing, thanks to the vitality of the Nordic countries with 8 projects, and countries of Eastern Europe such as Poland and the Czech Republic.

The 17th edition of CARTOON Movie is organized with the support of Creative Europe - MEDIA, CNC (Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée), Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Region, la Métropole de Lyon and in collaboration with the Imaginove cluster (Lyon). Since 1990, more than 254 films pitched at CARTOON Movie, with a total budget of 1.7 billion Euros, have secured their financing and have been released thanks to this annual forum aimed at strengthening the production and distribution of animated feature films in Europe.

Source: CARTOON Movie

Jennifer Wolfe's picture

Formerly Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network, Jennifer Wolfe has worked in the Media & Entertainment industry as a writer and PR professional since 2003.