SPECIAL EDITION CARTOON FORUM / MIPJunior 2017
THE ANIMATION GAZETTE drawn by animation
FLANDRIENS HIT TOP FORUM Whenever Cartoon Forum comes to town, the Flandriens of Animation are never far behind. As Toulouse prepares to welcome the 2017 edition of this venerable TV animation pitch and co-production event, toon talent from across Flanders is climbing into the saddle and hitting the road. This year the charge is led by A Private View, who have teamed with Beast Animation to pitch Mister Paper, a stop-motion, cut-out animation series about a man with a cut-out solution for every situation. They are joined by Ghent-based producer Lunanime, which is pitching Ollie, a pre-school series created by Anton Setola about a group of animals who have adventures in a small, forgotten city park. Many animation series under way in Flanders, or recently released, have free-wheeled through
Cartoon Forum in recent years. In 2012 writer-director Joeri Christiaen pitched his medieval comedy My Knight and Me, which has since been sold globally by CAKE Entertainment to Turner’s channels. It is now available on Cartoon Network and Boomerang in over 100 countries, including the US. He followed up in 2014 with a meta spin-off called Roger Flambé: animated actor, which is now under development with Disney Channel EMEA. Also riding well is Beast Animation’s George
RICH PITCH FOR CUT & PASTE HERO A Private View is best known for live-action fiction features, such as Moscow Belgium, Oxygen and Vincent, but its heart also beats for animation. In particular the Ghentbased producer loves stop-motion, teaming with fellow Flandriens Beast Animation to make magical TV series for kids. Their first outing was Rusty, based on books by Sieb Posthuma about a puppy growing up and exploring the world. This model
Mister Paper
Catherine
Britt Raes’ animated short Catherine is a runaway success, receiving invitations from 55 film festivals (from Tehran to Austin, Texas) and collecting nine awards on its travels. It tells the story of a young woman who loves her pet cat, but finds it increasingly hard to connect with other people. Will she find love, or is she destined to become a crazy old cat lady? Creative Conspiracy in Ghent is the producer.
WHAT IS A FLANDRIEN, P.3
PARK LARKS AFTER DARK
Ollie
In a world dominated by 3D animation, Lunanime is committed to 2D, from hand-drawn to computer animation. “There are a lot of artists that still have something to tell us, and who want to explore, and we want to be there for them, to help them develop new things,” says production head Annemie Degryse. One of these is Anton Setola, whose atmospheric short Jazzed toured over 70 festivals around the world, picking up several awards in the process. Now he is working on Ollie, a series for pre-schoolers set in a small park, enclosed and forgotten, in the middle of the city. It’s here that Ollie the baby owl and his friends -- a small stork, a young frog and five little birds -- play and have adventures. Ollie was pitched at Cartoon 360°, the market for cross media animation, and will also appear at Cartoon Forum. As well as producing, Ghent-based Lunanime has an in-house animation unit,
StudioLumière, which made important contributions to Oscar-nominated feature A Cat in Paris and Phantom Boy, both by Jean-Loup Felicioli and Alain Gagnol. Its 15 animators are now busy with feature co-production Funan, by Denis Do, about a young woman trying to survive the Khmer Rouge regime. The company is also developing several other feature co-productions, including: Tulip by Felicioli and Gagnol; The Siren by Sepideh Farsi (pitched at Cartoon Movie this year); I Lost My Body by Jeremy Clapin; and Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman by Pierre Foldes.
T H E A N I M AT I O N GA Z E T T E # 2
animation series charmed broadcasters and won a cinema release in Belgium. Their next project is Mister Paper, a series in a classical cut-out animation style to match his cut-and-paste hero. Mister Paper cuts out and sticks together his world. He lives in a paper house, set in a paper landscape. His only companion is a cat, but thanks to his scissors and his imagination, he is never alone. For every situation, he creates a solution by cutting or pasting something new. Through his adventures, the world of children is brought to life in a playful, imaginative manner. A world rooted in reality, where anything is possible. The 26 x 7’ series is based on original work by Elvis Peeters and Gerda Dendooven, noted writers and illustrators of kids’ books in Flanders. The series will be coproduced by Beast Animation, Viking Film and VRT/Ketnet and pitched at this year’s Cartoon Forum.
& Paul, a stop-motion series about two friends made of coloured wooden blocks. The series is finished and the episode Sleepwalking was selected for this year’s Annecy International Animation Film Festival. Distribution 360 is handling international sales. Fox and Hare sped through Toulouse in 2014 and is now in production. This tale of forest folk is based on the famous children’s books by Sylvia Vanden Heede, with illustrations by Thé Tjong-Khing. Tom Van Gestel and Mascha Halberstad direct, with Walking The Dog and Submarine producing. Also under way are Elvis & Benny, produced by Haptic, and Interstellar Ella, a BBC co-production with Flemish smarts from Grid Animation. Both were presented at Cartoon Forum in 2015.
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