28/02/2005

Every year, the professionals of animation cinema elect three operators (producers, directors, or distributors), individual people or companies, who are deemed to have helped animation cinema to develop and new talents to emerge. There are six nominees, amongst which three are elected on the final day of Cartoon Movies, an event which takes place in Postdam from the 10th to the 12th of March.

One of the nominees this year is the production branch of France Télévision, France 3 Cinéma, to which we owe two of the most successful European animation films in the past few years, Kirikou la Sorcière by Michel Ocelot (1997) and Sylvain Chaumet’s Les triplettes de Belleville [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (2003). Every year, France 3 Cinéma dedicates 10% of its budget to produce or coproduce full-length animation films. France is actually quite supportive of the genre : the private TV channel M6, with 5 million euros invested every year in animation cinema (for cartoon series as well as full-length animation films) is also a nominee. Lusomundo, the Portuguese distributor, was also selected, for they release animation films on the screens, on VHS and DVD, and are about to launch three full-length works on the national screens : Back to Gaya, Pollux The Magic Carrousel, and Pinocchio 3000 .

Amongst the personalities who will be present this year at Cartoon Movies, we find the work-partners Piet de Rycker and Thilo Rothkirch (BE/DE) who are a typical example of how fruitful European cooperation can be. They have already worked together on Tobias Totz and his lion (2000), The Little Polar Bear (2002) which sold over 2,7 million tickets in Germany only, Laura’s Star which is currently on the screen in Germany and already sold 1,3 million tickets, and a sequel of The Little Polar Bear which is still in production. Another nominee is the German writer Ralph Christian, who has been working in Ireland for ten years for Studio Magma, enriching the genre with 200 hours of script for cartoon series and full-length animation films .

Finally, this sixth edition of Cartoon Movie will emphasize a new European initiative, Indie Circle started in September 2003 : A-Film Distribution (Netherlands), Cinéart (Belgium), Haut et Court (France), Frenetic Films (Switzerland), and Lucky Red have united to increase the circulation of the animation films they respectively distribute and promote their work within Europe (Les Triplettes de Belleville, Chiken Run, Pettson and Findus by the Swedish Hanan Kaminski, and more).

(Translated from French)