15/03/2005

The Cartoon Movie 2005 has come to its end on this Friday in Postdam. The vivid communication event and intensive meeting, as most important co-production market for animation film, has welcomed 448 participants - creators, producers, distributors investors and upcoming talents (including 62 distributors) – from over the world. For the 7th time, intensive meetings on new trends, development, financing and possible co-productions where held.

The mood is optimistic for Animated films made in Europe. Since the creation of Cartoon Movie, 79 feature films have been completely financed (for an amount of 420 million EUR). This year, a total of 50 projects have been presented and a total budget of € 289,000,000 has been discussed. The projects have shown the opening up of Europe. Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia where present for the first time while Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic are back again. For the first time, 60% of the projects were presented in 3D animation, even if traditional animation is still an artistic choice of many directors.

On the last day of this year in Potsdam, the Cartoon Movie Tributes 2005 were awarded for the 5th time. Three of the six nominees have taken the award home with them : France 3 Cinéma for its co-production of an average of three full-length features a year, Ralph Christians (from Magma Films, Ireland) for his dedication to the cause of European storytelling in animation, the directing team of Piet De Rycker and Thilo Rothkirch (Cartoon- Film, Germany): a pair of directors with complementary attributes, who are notching up success after success.

The next Cartoon Movie will take place next year from 9-11 March 2006. Before that, Cartoon Forum – the co-production forum for animated series – which will take place in Kolding, Denmark from 21-24 September 2006, the 2 upcoming Cartoon Masters will take place in Spain (La Coruña) in April.

(Translated from French)