“There is money to be made in animation” – the Nordic Industry looks ahead at Fredrikstad Animation Festival

This year’s Fredrikstad Animation Festival (October 23–26) introduced fresh formats, new insights, and animation awards. Nordisk Film & TV Fond (NFTVF) participated in panels and industry meetings as part of the Fund’s 2025 theme year Animation Collaboration.

Since its early days in the 90s, when the festival took place in Oslo, it has become the main Nordic-Baltic animation festival. Arna Marie Bersaas, International Relations Manager at the Norwegian Film Institute, who worked for its first editions, says that the festival has helped Norwegian animation become successful, and now does the same on a Nordic level:

“Since it became the festival for the Nordic and Baltic region for animated films, it has developed into an important meeting place for the animation industry. Dedicated people come together year after year and are able to build strong and lasting collaborations.”

Selling Animation

Despite streaming services largely stopping commissioning new animation stories and focusing more on acquisitions of proven IPs, the festival panel “Meet the International Sales” provided hope.

Hanna Mouchez, founder of MIAM! Animation, talked about the importance of brand awareness when creating new IP:

“There is a strong demand for preschool and kids’ content. It’s always possible to bring original IPs, but the producers need to first start building the brand awareness after the early development of the series. And I think after the early development, we have to think cross-platform.”

European content is competing with high budget US features in the theatres, and a lot of animated content is fighting for the same audience. Netflix has recently achieved global success with the US-Korean animated film KPop Demon Hunters, which might show new financial possibilities. Solveig Langeland, founder of Sola Media, stressed the importance of staying original:

“There is money to be made in animation if you do it the right way. You should have a marketing plan and adapt it, look at the international market, and look at the home market. Very often, especially if you work with the local brands, you must be very careful about not trying to internationalise too much, so that you can use your home audience.”

Animation Collaboration and NAN

During NFTVF’s animation theme year (CLICK HERE), the Fund has especially supported the strengthening of Nordic networks. This has enabled a solid structure for the producers’ network Nordic Animation and furthered the development of the Northern Animation Network (NAN) built between Fredrikstad Animation Festival, Viborg Animation Festival, REX Animation Festival, and BLON.

Fredrikstad’s Festival Director Anders Narverud Moen updated on the development of NAN and its shared platform, which will make submitting processes and the overall administration more efficient. It will aslo be used for promotional and educational purposes.

Internal Meeting on Nordic Co-financing

During this year’s festival, Nordic Animation arranged a meeting between a room full of Nordic animation producers and Nordic financiers. Kjetil Omberg, Director of Production and International Relations at the Norwegian Film Institute, and Liselott Forsman, CEO of NFTVF, represented the latter.

The lively and constructive meeting underlined that more co-productions and new models for collaboration in the Nordics are needed. Finding new ways to to collaborate is constantly on NFTVF’s agenda, Forsman pointed out:

“Concrete collaboration is advanced through think tanks at our yearly partner meetings, and there is always a group focusing on strategies for kids’ content. This open dialogue in Fredrikstad between producers and financiers adds to that work too. We all share the same urge to strengthen our important Nordic animation industry.”

During the meeting, Nordic values were mentioned as a shared nominator for collaboration. Irene Sparre, CEO of Sparre Production, who co-produces internationally, said:

“I think we have a value-based obligation to save the kids in the future, to give them content that has a heart, that has something that resonates with the values we believe in in the Nordics. I would love to do more co-productions in the Nordics, because there are so many values that we share.”

Kjetil Omberg agreed: “Our values really apply well in the world. Democracy has never been more important. The Nordic ground is super important, because the way Nordic films, regardless of genre, are positioned outside of the Nordic countries provides a great opportunity.”

Fresh Formats and First Sámi Animation Feature

The New Nordic Animation pitching showed a great variety of new formats, from arthouse films to animated series for toddlers. Oskar Östergren Njajta, Sámi filmmaker, presented The Forest of Knowledge (Kunskapens skog), the first ever animated Sámi film, and discussed the importance of representation in cinemas for a local audience. To him, the opening of Sami Blood (Sameblod, 2016), that he co-produced, became a turning point:

“A room full of South Sámi people for the first time watching a film in the cinema that was aimed at them, where they could see their own culture and language… This was the first time ever, and in the room you could really feel how important it was. I felt that this is something we just need to do for the Sámi kids to have something of their own in the cinema theatres,” Östergren Njajta said.

The Sustainability of Animation

In the panel Sustainability & Animation, Patrik Axén, the project manager of the Nordic Ecological Standard NES (CLICK HERE), said that the standard can also apply to animations.

Mads Astrup Rønning, founder of Green Producers Club, explained that in general, emissions from animation – which are not co-productions – mainly come from energy consumption related to data processing and data management. In the Nordics, where the electric grid is relatively clean, animation is by nature more sustainable than live action.

“What is interesting, however, is that although the total emissions from animation are lower than live-action productions, transportation often accounts for a similar share of overall emissions in the case of co-productions,” Astrup Rønning added.

Birta Bjarnadóttir, the COO of the Icelandic animated children’s series Tulipop, underscored the need for specific standards on sustainability for animation and the value of agreeing on shared standards:

“The minute we start overcomplicating things for people and production studios, which are just simply trying to produce films, we will have worse results.”

She also stressed that animation can teach green values from a young age on.

“Tulipop is an Icelandic IP in children's entertainment. It’s based on our island, and most, if not all, of our stories happen in nature. We want to teach children that nature is an open playground worth saving.”

Awarding courage and creativity

This year’s edition of FAF awarded Dog of God (Dieva suns) the Best Nordic-Baltic Feature Film Prize, a Latvian-American co-production directed by Lauris Abele and Raitis Abele. According to the jury, Dog of God “pushes boundaries – both ours as an audience and the expectations of animation”.

The Finnish feature film Fleak (Fleak: Kekseliäs ystäväni), directed by Jens Møller, was awarded Special Mention – Feature Film. “The filmmakers make full use of the expressive power of animation, creating a vivid fantasy world that mirrors and supports the inner lives of the main characters during a complex moment of transformation,” the jury stated.

For the complete list of awards: CLICK HERE

Fredrikstad Animation Festival has been supported by NFTVF.