Geographical Region: Europe

MIP TV is the premiere television conference and market in the world. The six-day event brings together production companies and distributors from all over the globe. The conference includes a vast array of panels and round-table discussions with some of the world's top professionals. In 1999, MIP TV attracted 10,439 professionals from 2,565 companies from 94 countries, of which 1,170 were exhibiting companies from 50 different countries. This year MIP TV will be featuring a focus on the Internet and other related new technologies.

The Stuttgart International Festival of Animated Film was celebrated March 16-21, marking its 20th year in existence. The biannual festival presented a wide ranging programme, giving prizes worth 142,000 German marks (70,000 euros or US dollars) and enjoying a growth of 25% in the number of spectators. With approximately 42,000 spectators and some 500 films in the programme, Stuttgart calls itself, "The second largest animated film event world wide," a definition which might well be true. A new competition category this year was for feature animations.

* Tuesday, April 25 - Saturday, April 29, 2000. Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.

* Wednesday, May 3 - Sunday, May 7, 2000. Fredrikstad, Norway.

On Tuesday, March 21, 2000, CINAR Corp. announced that co-founder, Ron Weinberg, and former controller, Mario Ricci, signed documents approving the company's non-board-approved investments. CINAR's spokeswoman, Suzan Ayscough, said, "The documents in question were signed either by Ron Weinberg alone, or by Mr. Weinberg and Mr. Panju or by Mr. Ricci." Previously, CINAR reported that their now fired senior executive VP Panju acted alone in investing the money.

Fox Kids Europe has acquired the exclusive U.K. and French rights to DIGIMON: DIGITAL MONSTERS from Toei Animation of Japan. The POKEMON-like series will hit Fox Kids Europe on April 1 and premiere on Britain's ITV network. September will see the debut of the show in France on TF1 and Fox Kids France.

The Tampere International Short Film Festival in Finland has always been a place for animation. This year was no exception. Animation is an integral part of the programme. The Tampere Festival, which celebrated its 30th edition March 8-12, 2000, is often regarded as one of the major short film festivals in Europe, even in the world. However, among the general short film festivals it has the clearest emphasis on animation. The festival enjoyed beautiful weather; the sun shone and the ground was completely covered with soft white snow.

On March 9, 2000, the winners of the British Animation Awards were announced to a packed audience at London's National Film Theatre. The big winner was ROBBIE THE REINDEER: HOOVES OF FIRE directed by Richard Goleszowski, which took home three awards. The half-hour TV special tells the story of the trainee reindeer, Robbie (son of Rudolph), and his bulbous nose. The film was a BBC Animation Unit/BBC Worldwide production in association with Comic Relief. Oscar short-listed films HUMDRUM and SILENCE both picked up awards. Below is a full list of winners in each category.

Over the weekend beginning Friday, March 10, 2000, TOY STORY 2 made history in Japan by grossing US$3.8 million on only 364 screens to become the biggest opening for a U.S. animated film in Japan and finishing #1 at the box office. The Buena Vista International release crushed the old record set by Disney's THE LION KING by nearly 80%. Woody and Buzz more than doubled this weekend's debut of the 21st installment of the Japanese animated feature series, DORAEMON.