28/06/2007

The DFFF – Germany’s federal film fund set up in January of this year (see Special Report) – has provided funding of €20,935,000 to 34 film projects, including two new recruits already making the headlines, as they are the first international animated films to be supported by the new programme. These are Jasper – Reise bis ans Ende der Welt (“Jasper: Journey to the End of the World”) and Niko & the Way to the Stars.

French/German/Romanian co-production Jasper, based on the television adventures of Jasper the penguin, was granted €655,081. In order to bring to life in 3D under the watchful eye of the director Eckart Fingberg, the little hero from the South Pole is scheduled to spend over six months in the Hamburg studios of Toons ‚N’ Tales (in collaboration with their new Berlin team) and in Cologne, where the film will take its final form at the SoundVision, Animagix and Daywalker studios. The animated title is slated for a summer 2008 release through 20th Century Fox Germany.

Meanwhile, Niko & the Way to the Stars – expected to hit screens around Christmas 2008 (Universum Film) – is a complex 3D project, jointly produced by Hamburg-based Ulysses and Ireland’s Magma Films in collaboration with Finnish and Danish outfits.

Lensing on Niko, a little reindeer looking for his father, will kick off in Hamburg at Pictorion Magma Animation Studio and continue at Copenhagen’s A.Film. The DFFF granted the ambitious project €252,834.

(Translated from French)