Independents’ Days

International indie animation producers, distributors and sales agents give us their take on the global feature scene.

This month’s big Cannes Film Festival and Market (May 16-24) event in France gave us the opportunity to catch up with some of the big movers and shakers on the international independent animation feature landscape. They were kind enough to keep us up to date with their 2023 animated movie catalogs and discuss some of their triumphs, challenges and survival strategies for the year ahead:

Sean

Feeney,

Head of Production

Amanda Kerridge, Marketing Director, GFM

Animated titles at Cannes/ Annecy: Current titles on our slate for Cannes/ Annecy are 10 Lives, Stitch Head, A Greyhound of a Girl and Sneaks, plus another title (maybe two) to be announced.

Thoughts on the market: Based on our experience at the EFM, the current global animation market is vibrant. There is a definite appetite for domestic and leading independent animation studios to license top-tier family movies if you have the right creative elements, a strong hook and audience appeal.

Big challenges ahead: For GFM Animation on the production side, the biggest challenges are finding movies like 10 Lives, Sneaks and Stitch Head that have the right story and creative elements, and are at the right budget level. With our other hat on, from a sales point of view, the biggest challenge is securing distribution in North America. It has the biggest audience for family movies and is incredibly important, but for sure it is the most complicated; a jigsaw puzzle with many pieces that can take a while to solve.

What do you love about your slate: We are thrilled with how varied the stories are that are being told across our slate. We are working with first-class filmmakers who want to tell fantastic stories and who recognize that to do that you need to tick various creative boxes to ensure that distributors – and audiences – connect with the film. 10 Lives for example is nearing completion at L’Atelier and we are blown away by the quality of the animation, and how the story and characters have come to life under Chris Jenkins’ direction. Every ‘show & tell’ meeting we have with the production team is a joy.

On the tough theatrical market: Distributors are much savvier about how and when they release the movies they acquire. Historically, school holidays and public holidays are booked out by bigger studio features and therefore independent distributors need to be creative in when and how they release animated or family features in their territories. This can mean, for example, not simply following the domestic lead, but tailoring their release date & marketing plan to suit their local audience requirements. In terms of silver linings, we are finding that an increasing number of distributors are now more open to independent animated features than they were three or four years ago. It’s exciting to know that because of this, more stories can be told and enjoyed by audiences worldwide.

Simon Crowe Founder &

CEO, SC Films International

Animated titles at Cannes/Annecy: There’s Headspace, a family CGI animation feature from South Africa’s Luma animation studios: It’s their first feature and they’ve done a great job. It’s fun, it’s lively and is due to be completed in April. Cannes will be its first screening. We have Dragonkeeper, a big action-adventure between Spain and China. The footage at Cartoon Movie looked amazing and we will have more footage for Cannes. Girl in the Clouds is a France-Belgium co-production, with a great script and promo. We’ll have more news in Cannes, and production starting September 2023. Take on the global scene: The global market remains tricky post-COVID, but I’m hoping we will see optimism return from a theatrical perspective. There are a lot of strong titles on release this summer and this should bring back visitors to cinemas. Then, I hope we can deliver theatrical animation films by the end of 2023 and 2024. Families will always want to be entertained, and there is nothing better than a trip to the cinema. I am also hoping for the re-emergence of China. FILMART was held as an in-person event, and allegedly 330 distributors from China were in attendance. That’s surely a positive sign for the future. Biggest challenges: We have some great stories, but funding is difficult whilst the audiences have not returned to the cinema – hopefully this year. And I’d love streamers to start buying independent animated films again. All streamers need more family-friendly titles. On the 2023 slate: I believe our job is to find movies to entertain the largest audience possible. Each film has a unique story and with animation, a happy ending. Dragonkeeper is on an epic scale and who does not love dragons! Headspace is a fantastical story about miniature aliens invading Earth, and Girl in the Clouds is about a girl saving Earth from environmental catastrophe, aided by a talking (and very funny) guinea pig.

Silver linings: The big challenge is to make the films theatrical in story and quality. If the films are compelling, distributors will release theatrically and then we are onto a winner. Home entertainment is always strong for animation, but we need the theatrical market back across the world. Silver linings, hopefully China and a growing market in Saudi Arabia.

Michael Favelle Founder

& CEO, Odin’s Eye Entertainment

This year’s slate: Our lead animated title is Shimmy: The First Monkey King, which was written and directed by Dick and Ralph Zondag. We also have Alebrijes, from Mexico’s HuevoCartoon and hopefully a few other movies which are almost ready to formally announce.

My favorite thing about Shimmy is that unlike a few Monkey King animations in the past, this one has a very likeable (but cheeky) protagonist, and the film also has some of the best character animation I’ve seen in an independent animated feature. Alebrijes is a fantastical dive into the colorful and creative world of chimeric creatures each with a distinct personality that mirrors that of their human counterpart which opens the door for a lot of conflict and humor.

On on the global animation market this year: I think it’s incredibly difficult, at the moment, to package and close finance. Streamers have not been actively buying in recent years as they have been focusing on their own projects and consolidation in the PTV/FTV sectors have complicated matters further to the point where distributors do not have the same level confidence in being able to secure a partner to help cover increasingly expensive dubbing costs and P&A. While some territories have largely recovered, there are some where the theatrical animation market has not returned outside of anime (e.g. South Korea). Major challenges: In terms of features, there is definitely not as much equity finance ‘out there’ as there used to be and it’s becoming ever more challenging to close finance. The theatrical scene has not fully recovered and in some cases, grandparents for example (in some countries) are not yet comfortable in bringing preschool age children into cinemas. But it’s clear that audiences will come out for the right kind of movie. Look at the incredible success of The Super Mario Bros. Movie, for example. While that is a beloved outlier IP, I do believe that great characters with compelling and original stories can be executed in the indie space, and we hope to bring to market the next Shrek or Finding Nemo soon.

Silver Linings: We’ve been doing business with companies who traditionally have not released animation. As an example, we sold HeuvoCartoons’ Little Eggs to Alba in France who has released the film on 300 screens, and to Dazzler in the U.K. which has released the film on a few hundred screens. That said, our regular distribution partners remain dedicated to animation, but are certainly becoming more selective and want to see more of each film before committing to a prebuy.

Julia Weber, Head of Intl. Sales & Acquisitions

Klaus Rasmussen, Senior VP, Intl. Sales & Acquisitions Global Screen

Cannes and/or Annecy titles: We are excited to present first scenes for Niko – Be- yond the Northern Lights – our new fantastic, animated feature. After the global success of the first two Niko movies sold to over 120 countries, the creative team from Animaker Inc., Ulysses Films (The Amazing Maurice), Moetion Films (Ooops! Noah is gone…) and A. Film Production (Luis and the Aliens) have joined together and are working on this heartwarming holiday adventure, under the direction of Kari Juusonen with co-director Lerdam, Jørgen. It’s a pleasure for us to work with such a talented team.

We’re also presenting The Last Whale Singer, an epic adventure about self-confidence, the power of collaboration and finding your inner voice. Whale Singers have protected the oceans and their inhabitants with their mystical songs, which granted them magical powers such as healing. They visit exotic, faraway places and encounter fascinating marine creatures. The film shines a light on environmental threats while maintaining a message of hope and activism. It’s created entirely in Unreal Engine massive, shared universe with an interwoven story that includes an upcoming video game, an episodic series, AR/VR projects and more, each created using the same assets designed for the film.

On the global animation market: We are seeing more and more interest in animated titles and now more than ever, distributors are also looking for the commercial family entertainment films, although they may not have considered this type of film before. In this segment, IPs, in particular, play an important role.

Animation is no longer considered as a “genre” but cinema, a powerful medium to tell universal and timeless stories”. It fascinates not only children, but also teenagers and adults. In times where is being difficult to attract the audience into the theaters, animated features have a special international potential and offer diversity. All people can relate to these stories, no matter where they are from.

Biggest challenges: Distributors are being very cautelous and picky with their selections and it is becoming harder to bring the films into the cinemas unless they are of high animated quality. Many animated projects are being produced these days and the challenge is to get hold of the crème de la crème. The production process for an animation film takes a long time and we, as a sales company, are very cautious to work with well-established producers and animation studios who can deliver on time as planned.

Thoughts on this year’s slate: The variety of our lineup allow us to meet the big spectrum of the market demands. Precisely, this diversity and the balance among our titles, is what we most like about our slate.

Silver Linings: The difficult situation of the arthouse worldwide market has pushed even more the demand for high-quality animated movies that still can bring a wider audience into the cinemas.

Rodney Uhler Director of Acquisitions & Development, GKIDS

On the global animation market: The international animation market in 2023 is as robust and exciting as any in the past. GKIDS is celebrating its 15th anniversary this year, so it is a natural point of reflection for us, looking in all directions: past, present and future. You cannot dispute the influence and impact of anime, not just with this generation of filmmakers, but with a booming global audience and its broader cultural impact beyond animation. What’s particularly exciting is the ripple effects of that influence. In production, you have filmmakers outside of Japan who are putting their own unique spin on that anime style of art and storytelling. With audiences you have a huge demo, who perhaps entered animation through anime, but are now open to different styles of animation like Alberto Vázquez’s Unicorn Wars or the exciting work coming out of China like the most recent Light Chaser film New Gods: Yang Jian The GKIDS 2023 slate: We should probably claim more credit for how our slate shaped itself to be particularly relevant for our anniversary year, but in mostly coincidental ways it has become a great reflection of what GKIDS has stood for over the past 15 years.

When everyone in the film world is highly anticipating a new Hayao Miyazaki film, it is a natural fit for celebrating his past films and the work of Studio Ghibli. We’re putting all his past Ghibli features into theaters over the course of the year. Ernest and Celestine: A Trip to Gibberitia will be released later this year. We’re also proud to be releasing releasing Keiichi Hara’s Lonely Castle in the Mirror, which is based on the acclaimed novel by Mizuki Tsujimura, this summer. Silver Linings: Many of the issues facing the theatrical landscape in the live action film industry are being felt in animation as well but it has given GKIDS a good moment to think creatively about how to best share our films. We’re finding everyone is a little more flexible on windowing which has allowed us to not force films into a predetermined release time-frame and be more strategic about when and where audiences are able to see the film. We’ve seen huge success with event

Features

releasing on a large theatrical footprint.

What remains though, is that GKIDS has given films theatrical releases for every year (including 2020 and 2021) of its 15-year history and we do not foresee that commitment changing in the future.

Tania Pinto Da Cunha VP/Partner, Pink Parrot Media

Animated titles at Cannes/Annecy: We are announcing two new acquisitions, The Bottanix, which is in financing, and Norbert which is now in production and will to ready in 2024. The Bottanix is a new project developed at CarpeDiem Film & TV in Montreal, our mother company. We are launching it in Cannes, with a great script and beautiful and funny promo. Norbert is a new acquisition from Capitán Araña in Spain, which offers a unique approach to value the importance of nature against aggressive consumers. Another family title which is quite special to us is Colorland, which helps promote the value simple things in life, nature, friendship, and empathy. All this conveyed with unusual characters full of great spirits, happiness and music.

We will also be making some announcements regarding the singers we have signed for the songs of Butterfly Tale, which we are delivering this year, with a Premier in Canada most probably this October 2023. “Something Big” by Shawn Mendes and “Anywhere with You” by Johnny Orlando. We may be bringing two more titles, and some surprises will come most certainly.

On the global animation scene: It is blooming again. We have had some difficulties to get to the sales we used to before COVID affected all of us, but it feels now that things are really coming back. Animation is still a format that works very well in theaters which is the business we are focusing on. There will be great independent animated movies coming out this year, which will find their place among the big studio ones. I strongly think there is room for both to survive. ◆