Cartoon Forum 2010

22/09/10 by Jennie Stacey

Posted in Animators

Last week I headed to Sopron, Hungary for Cartoon Forum, the biggest annual gathering of the European animation community. Each year the Forum is held in a different European town, and about 1,000 animation industry people descended on Sopron to pitch 60 new projects to broadcasters, distributors and co-producers.

The Forum kicked off with a huge barbeque by a lake with a gypsy band playing. One of the nicest things about the Forum is that meals are all taken together, buffet style, which means that everyone gets to mingle instead of staying with their usual gang. It definitely makes for a very friendly atmosphere.

Three days of pitch sessions kicked off on Wednesday with producers from all over Europe pitching shows in a huge variety of animation styles. As usual, pre-school projects were in the majority, but there were quite a few projects aimed at the 6-11 age group.

Jam Media’s presentation of Tilly & Friends was a big hit, with author & illustrator Polly Dunbar drawing her way through a sample story for the audience. Autour de Minuit‘s Babioles  got the biggest laughs of the Forum for its hilarious non-dialogue pilot featuring squeaky toys looking for friendship in a harsh real life environment. Joyets from Iain Harvey’s Illuminated Film Company and Karrot Animation’s Sarah & Duck also went down particularly well.

After the pitch sessions each day we were all bussed off to do some sight-seeing in the region. We crossed the Austrian/Hungarian border so many times we weren’t quite sure what country we were in half the time. We visited Esterhazy Castle, where Josef Haydn lived & worked for 40 years (a full orchestra was rehearsing for the Haydn Festival in the palace’s concert hall which apparently has the best accoustics in the world). There was wine-tasting at a local vineyard and a boat trip around Lake Fertő, and lots of bad dancing at the parties organised by CARTOON!

Each year the attendees at the Forum vote for the Broadcaster, Distributor and Producer of the Year. In Sopron the awards went to YLE (Broadcaster), Moonscoop (Distributor) and TeamTo (Production company).

The final night’s party was hosted in the huge, cavernous (& very cold!) Fertörákos caves. The Cartoon D’Or awards for Best Film of the Year kicked off with an amazing live sand animation performance from Hungarian artist Ferenc Cako . The Cartoon D’or was won by Estonian Kaspar Jancis  for his film Crocodile.

After the awards there was a stampede for the dinner tables and the dancefloor for some dance lessons with a Hungarian folk band. The party continued well into the night so there were a lot of tired & emotional animation producers on the planes home the next morning. Next year the Forum will be held by the sea at Sopot, Poland…and it all starts all over again!