Car­toon Forum 2023: Highlights

After three days of enthusiastic pitching sessions, we hope that you've had a full harvest of contacts and ideas for the year to come. We are very proud for that colourful, sensitive and powerful selection of projects. A Nordic wave has reached Cartoon Forum: with 2 projects each, Finland, Norway and Denmark, left a mark in this year edition. Central and Eastern Europe established their own presence with 9 projects in total (2 for Ukraine, 1 for Bulgaria, 2 for Czech Republic, 2 for Poland & 1 for Estonia). We also saw interesting French projects in crowded rooms: "Erica & Trevor vs Spooky Monsters" (Cyber Group Studios), "Dungeons & Kittens" (Watch Next Media), "Annette, Apprentice Witch" (GO-N Productions), "Hold on Gaston!" (Dandelooo), "What’s up Eesha?" (TeamTO), "Filip & Fairy" (Normaal) & "Gisele and her Little Monsters" (Blue Spirit Productions).

We were delighted to welcome 270 buyers on site in Toulouse, including 10,5% new buyers such as LooLoo Kids (Mora TV, Romania), Light Lab (Latvia), Anime Digital Network (ADN, France), Ribka Publishing (Bulgaria), Carlsen Verlag (Germany), Kidstream (USA), Immersiva (USA), With Bells On Entertainment (Canada), TV Nova and Markiza Groups (Slovakia), Jungler (France), among others.

TOP 10 • PRESENCE FOR EUROPEAN COPRODUCTIONS

The order reflects the number of participants in the pitching room for projects co-produced in at least 2 European countries.

  1. Luce in the Lovely Land – Thuristar (Belgium), La Cabane Productions (France)
  2. Littlest Robot– Toon2Tango (Germany), V House Animation (North Macedonia)
  3. Aquila – Zodiak Kids & Family (France), Tiger Aspect Kids & Family (United Kingdom)
  4. Baby's First Crime Spree– Cardel Entertainment (Ireland), Snafu Pictures (United Kingdom)
  5. Moka Mera & Atlas– Anima Vitae (Finland), Moilo (Finland), Animoka Studios (Italy)
  6. Stage Struck!– Lighthouse Studios (Ireland), Dog Ears (United Kingdom)
  7. My Baby Crocodile – Take Five (Belgium), Sacrebleu Productions (France)
  8. Happily Never After– Heliumfilm (Czech Republic), Reynard Films (Germany)
  9. Nip & Lena. Fin Friends – Lynx Multimedia Factory (Italy), Telegael (Ireland)
  10. The Princess and the Nightingale – La Boîte,... Productions (Belgium), Les Films du Nord (France)

TOP 10 • PERCENTAGE OF BUYERS IN PITCHING SESSIONS

The order reflects the % of buyers present in the pitching room.

  1. Baby's First Crime Spree – Cardel Entertainment (Ireland), Snafu Pictures (UK) > 52%
  2. Littlest Robot – Toon2Tango (Germany), V House Animation (North Macedonia) > 48%
  3. The Sorcerer's Apprentice – bigchild Entertainment (Germany) > 47%
    Annie Melting Heart Cake – Sacrebleu Productions (France) > 47%
  4. Pig & Andersen – Fleng Entertainment (Denmark) > 46%
    Delivery Dan – JAM Media (Ireland) > 46%
  5. Ray & Ruby – Creative Conspiracy (Belgium) > 45%
    Freddie - Little Chopin – Letko (Poland), The Fryderyk Chopin Institute (Poland) > 45%
    20 Dance Street – Cottonwood Media (France) > 45%
  6. SuperBikes – Beta Film (Germany), Carlsen Verlag (Germany), Ulysses Filmproduktion (Germany) > 44%
    Mavka – Animagrad Studio - FILM.UA Group (Ukraine) > 44%
  7. Pil’s Adventures – TAT productions (France) > 43%
    Dougie Dolittle – Caligari Film- und Fernsehproduktion (Germany) > 43%
  8. Boule & Bill – Elliott Studio (France) > 42%
  9. Gisele and her Little Monsters – Blue Spirit Productions (France) > 41%
    Crazy Inventions – Badi Badi (Poland), Beat Shop Sound Studio (Poland) > 41%
  10. Stage Struck! – Lighthouse Studios (Ireland), Dog Ears (UK) > 40%
    Monsterberry Jam – Yarki (Ukraine) > 40%
    Space Aged – Studio Meala (Ireland) > 40%
    Ursa - The Polar Bear – Fabelaktiv (Norway), Ulvenfilm (Norway) > 40%
    Mortina – Cartobaleno (Italy) > 40%
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THE TRENDS OF CARTOON FORUM 2023

Young tal­ents and new com­pa­nies. We are hap­py to see our young pro­tégés from Car­toon Spring­board access­ing the audio­vi­su­al mar­ket: ​“9 Mil­lion Col­ors”, ​“Apoc­a­lypse Moji­to”, ​“Exit Tales”, ​“Hap­pi­ly Nev­er After” & ​“Toko Loko”. Britt Raes (director/​illustrator), who pitched ​“Luce in the Love­ly Land”, has par­tic­i­pat­ed in Car­toon Spring­board in 2018 with ​“Pet­lovers”, and has had 2 suc­cess­ful short films shown in fes­ti­vals.
Ver­e­na Fels, who pitched ​“Just One Day” (DE), has been nom­i­nat­ed for a Car­toon d’Or in 2011 with her first project ​“MOBILE”, based on a chil­dren book that she designed.
It has also been great to wel­comecom­pa­nies that were pitch­ing at Car­toon Forum for the first time, such as: Dar­jeel­ing (FR), Have a Nice Day Films (FR), Fleng Enter­tain­ment (DK), _​Dept. (NO), Ahoifilm (DE), Scared Ghost (ES), among others.

Adult ani­ma­tion still on the rise. With 14% (com­pared to 10% in 2022) of the select­ed projects being tar­get­ed at Young adults/​Adults, we see that adult ani­ma­tion is def­i­nite­ly con­sol­i­dat­ing its posi­tion. We dis­cov­ered: ​“B.A.D’s Agents”, ​“Iren the Siren”, ​“Pix­ie Pol­lux” & ​“Star­pets”, to name a few.

Mul­ti-lay­ers projects. 17 projects (23% of the selec­tion) have shown a crossover approach. A few exam­ples: ​“Super­Bikes”, the TV series will become a game, and will be adapt­ed into a book series. ​“Super Epic Tad­pole Jour­ney to the Sur­face of Croak Creek” has been pro­duced simul­ta­ne­ous­ly for lin­ear (hor­i­zon­tal for­mat) and for mobile phone (ver­ti­cal for­mat). ​“Lin­gokids Adven­tures with Baby Bot”, the TV series is based on a award-win­ning learn­ing app. ​“Moka Mera & Atlas” is also adapt­ed from learn­ing apps (about lan­guages & emo­tions). ​“The invis­i­bles” is planned to become also a book series.

Sup­port­ing role of the local ter­ri­to­ry. In this year’s selec­tion, two projects are sup­port­ed by the Occ­i­tanie Region:

  • “Pil’s Adven­tures” from TAT pro­duc­tions – adapt­ed from the fea­ture film ​“Pil”, and fol­low­ing the great suc­cess of ​“Jun­gle Bunch 2” (740.000 sold tickets).
  • “School Mon­i­tors” from Xbo films.

ANIMATED UK MEETS EUROPE: A GREAT KICKSTART

In the frame of "Animated UK Meets Europe", 41 production companies from 12 countries participated at the one-to-one meetings discussing coproduction possibilities with producers from all 5 UK projects. Many of these discussions continued informally during the event.

SAVE THE DATE

Cartoon Forum 2024 will happen from 16 to 19 September in Toulouse. Registration will open as soon as April 2024.

CARTOON FORUM'S ACCOMPLISHMENT OVER THE YEARS

Created in 1990 to boost the co-production and distribution of European animation for television and new media platforms, Cartoon Forum has helped 967 animation series obtain financing to the tune of over 3.49 billion Euros.