Denmark’s The Incredible Story of the Giant Pear and Iceland’s Ploey-You Never Fly Alone will be pitched at the animation forum (March 8-10) held for the first time in Bordeaux, France. The two animation films supported by Nordisk Film & TV Fond will be released in their respective territories later this year. 

The Incredible Story of the Giant Pear directed by Philip Einstein Lipski and Jørgen Lerdam is produced by Nordisk Film Production in association with Einstein Film and A Film. LevelK has pre-sold the non-stereo 3D/2D family film to territories including Hungary, Romania, South Korea and Iran.

Ploey-You Never Fly Alone directed by Árni Ólafur Ásgeirsson, Gunnar Karlsson and Ives Agemans is co-produced by Iceland’s GunHil and Belgium’s Cyborn. The stereo 3D family film has been pre-sold to more than 30 territories by ARRI Media.

The Norwegian 2D/Stop motion animated film The Tower by Mats Grorud will also be pitched among nine European projects in production. The film produced by tenk.tv (Norway), Les contes modernes (France) and Cinenic Film (Sweden) is set in a refugee camp in Lebanon.

The Danish animated documentary Flee by Johan Poher Rasmussen tackles as well the topical issue of human displacement through the story of a boy who loses his innocence and becomes a man during his forced journey away from home. The project in development is produced by Denmark’s Final Cut for Real, in co-production with Sun Creature Studio and France’s Vivement Lundi!

Other Nordic projects in development to be pitched include the 3D/2D family film Amundsen & Nobile by Kajsa Næss produced by Norway’s Mikrofilm in co-production with France’s Denis Friedman Productions, and the 3D family film Monstria by Richard Söderström produced by Copenhagen Bombay Productions (Sweden/Denmark).

Denmark’s top animation studio A Film is also involved as minority co-producer of the German family film Luis & the Aliens co-directed by Wolfgang, Christoph Lauenstein and Sean McCormack and the Dutch film The Little Vampire co-directed by Karsten Kiilerich and Richard Claus. Both features are in production.

A total of 55 animated European projects from 19 countries representing an overall production value of €303.5 million will be pitched at Cartoon Movie.

On Friday, the 750 professionals will select the Best European Director, Producer and Distributor of the year. Among the candidates for Best Distributor is Denmark's Angel Films that will compete against SVOD platform MUBI and French sales agent Urban Distribution International. The Norwegian Den Siste Skilling, minority partner in Richard the Stork, will compete with their European partners for Best European Producer.

For more information, check: www.cartoon-media.com

Two questions to Annick Maes, Cartoon Movie Director
What are your views on this year’s Nordic animated projects?
Annick Maes: as usual the projects are very varied and of high quality. Two of them- Amundsen & Nobile and The Tower were pitched earlier and both found a French co-production partner at Cartoon Movie.

The Danish project Flee is particularly interesting because it is directed by Johan Poher Rasmussen who was among our promising talents selected at Cartoon Springboard. It’s essential for European animation to have young talents coming forward.

What are the latest trends in animation, in terms of content, technology, budgets and co-production collaborations?
AM: In terms of content, there is a clear upwards trend in adult-skewed animated films with projects dealing with political or sensitive issues such as Flee and this year, 33% of the selected projects are targeting the young adult/adult audience. Those films are still difficult to sell, but they attract different distributors, not specialised in animation, coming from feature film or documentaries.

Regarding animation techniques, 3D CG animation still dominates with 21 projects out of 55, but stereoscopic projects are losing steam. 2D projects on the contrary continue to be popular and some production companies specialise in the technique.

In terms of budget, the average cost per film is still around €8-10 million. Some films are produced for less, such as Copenhagen Bombay’s projects. We also see a difference in cost between Eastern and Western European projects.

Regarding the countries, 54% of projects are co-productions between two or more territories, with France dominating the lot [17 projects, followed by German and Belgium with 5 projects each]. We are very happy to welcome new countries such as Israel, Ukraine, new members of Creative Europe, and we have Canadian projects via Cartoon Connection Canada.