Car­toon­Next 2023: Highlights

This new edition of CartoonNext has been a great dive into the future of animation. Keynotes, panel and case studies were followed carefully by a responsive audience. We've seen animated discussions during all the friendly and gastronomic networking moments. As for the pitching sessions, they definitely were a reality-check to grasp what the industry's challenges are right now.

PARTICIPATION NUMBERS

We were happy to welcome 221 participants from 23 countries. Among them, 40 speakers & experts were attending. 17 keynotes, panels & case studies, as well as 8 pitching sessions were presented during the event.

WHAT HAPPENED AT CARTOONNEXT 2023

Ani­ma­tion is cross­ing bridges. As we heard dur­ing these 2 days and half, ani­ma­tion is more alive than ever, and doing well. Mix­ing with oth­er domains like ani­me and gam­ing, using silo-mar­ket­ing to trans­form IP, devel­op­ing a pres­ence on ani­mat­ed cross-plat­forms, and grow­ing thanks to the adult audi­ence. Keynotes pre­sent­ed the chal­lenges to nur­ture tal­ents, to rein­vent lin­ear TV, and for Africa to find its own place. We had the plea­sure to wel­come two excep­tion­al guests: Mark Gustafson (Molevista/​USA) & Alexan­der Bulk­ley (ShadowMachine/​USA), co-direc­tor and pro­duc­er on Guiller­mo del Toro’s Pinoc­chio – explor­ing the sud­den light shed on stop-motion.
With Aaron David­son (Amazon/​USA), Adam Woodgate (Dubit/​UK), Cris­t­ian Jezdic (Car­toon Italia), Samuel Kamin­ka (Ani­m­France), Kate O’Connor (Ani­ma­tion UK), Justė Michaili­naitė (Lithuan­ian Ani­ma­tion Asso­ci­a­tion), Julie Kane-Ritsch (The Gotham Group/​USA), Julien Bor­de (Medi­awan Kids & Family/​FR), Jean-Philippe Ran­disi (bRAND-WARD/UK), Thier­ry Bau­jard (Spielfabrique/​DE/​FR), Ted­dy Kos­soko (Masse­ka Game Studio/​FR), Eliza Jäp­pinen (Vis­i­ble Realm/​FI), Lau­rent Nico­las (WeJustKids/​FR), Bar­tosz Szty­bor (CD PRO­JEKT RED/PL), Alexan­dre Cor­nu (Les Films du Tam­bour de Soie/​FR), among others.

Case stud­ies on 2 great suc­cess­es. Use cas­es pro­vide for great insights into suc­cess­ful projects. Mul­ti-nom­i­nat­ed & award-win­ning ​“I Lost My Body” brought to Car­toon­Next by Marc du Pon­tavice (Xilam/​FR) who described its incred­i­ble jour­ney – talk­ing about tech­ni­cal chal­lenges, and nar­ra­tive dilem­mas.
With ​“The Hero­ic Quest of Prince Ivan­doe”, Eva Lee Wall­berg & Chris­t­ian Boev­ing-Ander­sen (Titan’s Thunder/​DK) were able to show how ani­ma­tors can dream and end up with a cross-media franchise.

Projects with cross-media ambi­tion. There was a major­i­ty of projects (6 out of 8) tar­get­ing Chil­dren and Fam­i­ly, the last 2 have an audi­ence of Adults & Young Adults.

Lots of adven­ture, com­e­dy and friend­ship in this batch, it was a great fun dis­cov­er­ing these enter­tain­ing sto­ries. As for the cross-media ambi­tions, we had 4 projects want­i­ng to go to video game, and 3 projects think­ing of turn­ing into comics. Fur­ther­more, some projects would go to a RPG board game, a pod­cast or even a live show.

MANY THANKS TO OUR PARTNERS

The main partners of CartoonNext are Creative Europe - MEDIA, Région Sud Provence Alpes Côte d'Azur, Aix Marseille Provence Métropole, SudAnim and Ville de Marseille.

SAVE THE DATES

  • Cartoon Forum (18-21 September 2023 in Toulouse - France)
  • Cartoon Springboard (24-26 October 2023 in Madrid - Spain)
  • Cartoon Business (14-16 November 2023, Gran Canaria - Spain)