European animation feature film projects are always looking for money, so Lyon’s Cartoon Movie co-production forum, now in its 16th year, is a vital way to find backing.<br /><br />More than 700 participants from 40 countries met in the French city this year aiming to create partnerships and raise funds for European animation productions.<br /><br />“We looked at the 14 years before Cartoon Movie, and the 14 years since the forum’s creation, and we discovered that feature-length animated film production increased five-fold, a huge jump, and audiences for these films increased by a factor of 10,” said Cartoon Movie’s Director Marc Vandeweyer.<br /><br />Since 1999, over 215 films pitched at Cartoon Movie, with a total budget of 1.5 billion euros, have secured financing and have been released in the cinema.<br /><br />These include ‘Minuscule – La vallée des fourmis perdues’, or ‘The Valley of the Lost Ants’.<br /><br />The movie is a mix of real-life action and animation and had a budget of 10 million euros. <br /><br />In France it sold over 1. 2 million tickets which is quite successful for a French animated film which was released at the same time as big US blockbusters. <br /><br />The rights to ‘Minuscule – La vallée des fourmis perdues’ have already been sold around the world.
