Pitching

86 Projects for Cartoon Forum, Spotlight on Finland

86 Projects for Cartoon Forum, Spotlight on Finland

The French city of Toulouse will host the 29th edition of Cartoon Forum, the co-production platform for European animation series that will present 86 original projects from across Europe from 10-13 September 2018. This year, 21 countries have selected projects. France, UK, Germany, Belgium and Spain lead the selection, while the spotlight is on Finland. Furthermore, 44% of the projects is aimed at children. 

Created in 1990 to boost the co-production and distribution of European animation for TV and new media platforms, Cartoon Forum has helped 734 animation series obtain financing to the tune of over 2,5 billion Euros. 

France leads the line-up by country with 28 projects followed by UK with 9 projects, Germany with 8, Belgium with 7 and Spain with 6 projects, which confirm their solid production trend. 3 projects will be presented by Finland and Italy, and Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Serbia, Norway, Ukraine, Austria, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland and even Cyprus for the first time.

Having a look at the Central and Eastern European countries, we discover Hungarian stop-motion Noah's Tree by Péter Vácz (Filmfabrik), which participated in this year's VAF, and turns traumatic stories into a tree-growing environment.

Moving to Southern Europe, the Greek 2D cut-out TV series (13x5)Future Postman (AddArt) brings environmental issues to the fore by having a postman coming from the future to deliver to the people living in the present postcards from the loved ones. Another Greek project,  (which benefited from the Creative Europe MEDIA Grant for development), Mentor  by Angelos Rouvas (Boo Productions /Cosmote TV) delves into the country's Ottoman-occupied past to tell in its own way (2D/3D animation) the story of the Parthenon marbles and the British Museum.

The Cypriot project Magic Molly (Filmblades/ Pixel Giants, 52X11') is an upper pre-school buddy show about Molly (7) and Vigor (7); an excitable apprentice witch and her best friend, a chilled out dragon.

For the third time, Cartoon Forum will be putting the spotlight on a country. This year, the focus is on Finland. Series have been the main business for around 43% of Finnish producers most recently. Finland has a fast and simple 25% cash rebate, and the classical Moomins TV series and features, two Niko features from 2008 and 2012, and the 2016 success of The Angry Birds Movie. The three selected Finnish projects are:

A coaching programme will be organized during Cartoon Forum for the following Finnish animation schools: Tampere University of Applied Sciences (TAMK/Art & Media) - Aalto University/Department of Film, Television and Scenography - Turku University of Applied Sciences - Arts Academy. The ‘coaching programme’ is a training initiative through which young talents from local well-known specialized schools will have a large overview and insights on the animation industry and the challenges of launching an animation project.

{gallery}Cartoon Forum 2018{/gallery}

Two Canadian and one Korean projects will be presented as an extension of the collaboration with Canada and South Korea during the Cartoon Connection events:

  • Jax – Merlin’s Lineage by Squeeze (Canada)
  • The Galactic Postman by Urbania (Canada)
  • Wonderful ThumThum by Electural (SK)

Canada is also the main co-production partner this year with 5 other animation projects in co-production with France, Italy, Norway or Ukraine. Canada will be present with 7 projects in total. As a result of their pitch at Cartoon Springboard, the pitching event for young talents organised by Cartoon, two projects have been selected at Cartoon Forum:

In line with the growing number of children’s television channels across Europe, almost half of the projects are aimed at children. Pre-school series represent a third of the projects and less than 10% of the shows are aimed at the ‘new’ target of young adults and adults.

The latter includes the Italian TV special (55') Tufo (Les Contes Modernes (France) / ShowLab (Italy), which narrates the true  story of a Sicilian builder who became a target of the Mafia, but never gave in to their will.

The 29th edition of Cartoon Forum will take place from 10 to 13 September 2018 in Toulouse, France. CARTOON is an international non-profit association based in Brussels organizing Cartoon Forum, along with Cartoon Movie, a co-production forum for feature-length animation; and the Cartoon Master training seminars. The main partners of Cartoon Forum Toulouse are: Creative Europe - MEDIA, CNC (Centre National du Cinéma et de l'Image Animée), Region Occitanie / Pyrénées-Méditerranée, Mairie de Toulouse, Toulouse Métropole, Casino Barrière and France Télévisions.

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