11 Portuguese Animation Talents to Track

Fontaines D.C. have performed the brooding title track of their upcoming album ‘Romance’ on their European festival tour – check out the footage below.The band have been playing a number of shows around the continent this month, with ‘Romance’ often serving as the opening track.

Emiliano De Pablos Germany’s Pixable Studios has boarded coming of age “Finisterra,” one of the TV series projects which Portuguese outfit Take It Easy is promoting at this year’s Conecta Fiction & Entertainment edition. Lisbon-based Take It Easy produced Oscar-shortlisted LGBTQ+ live action short “An Avocado Pit,” executive produced by Elliot Page. “Finisterra” has just entered into post-production and will be ready for delivery by January.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent “Flow,” a director-driven animated feature which world premiered at Cannes’ Un Certain Regard and just swept three awards at Annecy Film Festival, has been embraced by a raft of major distributors in key territories, including the U.K., Japan, South Korea, Germany, Spain and Italy. The movie is represented internationally by Charades.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Extinction,” the Malaysian-produced animation that is playing at the Shanghai International Film Festival, has struck its first international rights sales deals. The film was recently picked up by All Rights Entertainment, the Paris, Hong Kong and Los Angeles-based sales agency. All Rights has subsequently licensed the title to Magic Film for the CIS region, to Dazzler Media for the U.K., to Red Cape Distribution for Israel and to Bir Film for Turkey.

Naman Ramachandran Ketan Mehta, the revered Indian filmmaker who also serves as founder and chair of animation house Cosmos-Maya, known for long-running animated Nickelodeon show “Motu Patlu,” says that the global companies who operate TV channels in India create content that is local-specific and fails to resonate with international audiences. Mehta was speaking at the ongoing Mumbai International Film Festival which hosted a lively panel debate on animation. The discussion featured some of the top Iranian and Indian names in the business.

Emiliano De Pablos The Portuguese TV fiction sector is experiencing growth as it garners international visibility through co-productions and alliances with streamers and foreign broadcasters. With a small domestic market – some 10 million inhabitants – Portuguese TV production is making a virtue of necessity. The region possesses a diversity of TV fiction offerings, ranging from commercial telenovelas to an increasing number of premium TV dramas, and is rapidly opening up to international partnerships.

Annecy Animation Festival, the most important eight days of the year for the global animation industry, wraps up tonight, so we’re looking back at 10 themes that dominated the dialogue around this year’s event. In interviews held before this year’s festival, several representatives from Hollywood studios, speaking on background, told us that Annecy has now replaced Comic-Con as their most important promotional event of the year for animation.

Marta Balaga Spanish Animation is ready for more international collaborations in the near future, but there is one stipulation: “Passion is mandatory,” said Hampa Studio’s Álvaro García González. Behind “The Treasure of Barracuda,” the company is currently eyeing Latin America. “Anybody who makes animation needs passion.

Holly Jones The minimal and subliminal converge in Swiss artist Yves Netzhammer‘s Annecy Contrechamp title “Journey of Shadows” (“Reise der Schatten”). Netzhammer, who made his feature debut with “Journey,” is well known for his work in sculpture, animation, mixed-media and video, all of which informed his animated project and abstract rendering of the human condition. “I’ve developed many animation works for installations over the last few years.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief All Rights Entertainment, the Paris, Hong Kong and Los Angeles-based international film agency has picked up international sales duties on animated children and family feature “Out of the Nest.” The film had its world premiere this week at the Annecy International Animation Festival. In the Kingdom of Castilia, days from the coronation of the new Emperor and Empress, their seven royal fledglings are taken and it’s up to one hero to return them safely; a teenage delivery boy, Arthur the Goat. His dreams of becoming a world-class barber are put on hold when he becomes the unwitting guardian of the royal heirs.

Good afternoon Insiders. We’ve been all over Europe this week, so here’s Max Goldbart, back in the London-shaped saddle, to walk you through the major stories of the past seven days. Scroll on. And sign up here.

Jamie Lang The seventh edition of Animation is Film (AIF), a Los Angeles-based sister event to France’s prestigious Annecy Animation Festival, will run October 18-20 at the TCL Chinese 6 Theaters in Hollywood this fall. Launched in 2017, “The Festival embraces the highest aspirations of animation as a cinematic art form on par with live action and is a vocal advocate for filmmakers who push the boundaries of their work to the fullest range of expression that the medium is capable of,” reads the AIF mission statement.

Christopher Vourlias Zaia Ventures, the venture studio led by former Prime Video chief marketing officer Ukonwa Ojo, has taken a stake inTaeps Animation Studios, a growing Nigerian outfit dedicated to bringing powerful African stories to life. Co-founded in 2017 by long-time friends and animation enthusiasts Adeoyin Okuboyejo and Ayobami Bello, Taeps Animation Studios aims to usher in a new era of animation that celebrates African culture and heritage.

Ibermedia Next, a groundbreaking fund dedicated to advancing the use of new technologies in animation and digital content from Spain, Portugal, Italy and Latin America, is launching its second round of funding. The announcement was made at the Annecy Animation Festival on the final day of its MIFA market at at a presentation attended by representatives of two of the project’s drivers: Jara Ayucar, director of marketing policy at Spain’s ICAA film agency, part of its Ministry of Culture; and Jose Luis Farias, executive producer of the Quirinos Awards, representing La Liga de la Animación Iberoamericana, formed by the Quirinos, Mexico’s Pixelatl Festival and Ventana Sur’s Animation! forum. Ibermedia Next 2 follows the success of the initial funding round which saw 14 innovative projects gain crucial support, allowing creators to push the boundaries of animation and VR technology.

Carolyn Giardina Two-time Oscar-nominated animation producer Bonnie Arnold was recognized with the Annecy Animation Festival‘s Golden Ticket on Thursday during a festival reception for members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Arnold first attended the international animation festival in 2013, as producer of “How To Train Your Dragon 2,” then as a jury member.

Animated movies about robots are always good. You’re talking about major films like “Wall-E” and “The Iron Giant.” Those are classics.

Anna Marie de la Fuente Eurozoom, a leading French distributor for Japanese animation, has forged a strategic partnership with major French animation producer Special Touch Studios, led by founder and CEO Sebastien Onomo. “We both share the same passion for animation and want to tell bold stories with a particular attention to professional diversity,” said Eurozoom’s CEO-Founder Amel Lacombe, who added that they were jointly working on a six-animation feature lineup. Leading the pack is “Melvile,” directed by Romain Renard and Fursy Teyssier.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent ANNECY, France — José Miguel Ribeiro, Nuno Beato and David Doutel and Vasco Sá, iconic figures in modern-day Portuguese animation, will unveil new projects at this year’s Annecy. They will be joined by newer talents – Vier Nev, behind “A Mind Sang” – João Carrilho, Patrícia Figueiredo and Natália Azevedo Andrade – who together deliver an eloquent snapshot of the burgeoning state of Portuguese animation. Over the last 30 years, Portuguese animation has won ever more prizes for usually 2D short films of dazzling beauty, experimentation and sometimes social point.

Oscar-winning Australian director Adam Elliot is at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival with his long-awaited second stop-motion feature Memoir of a Snail, which world premieres in the main competition.

Ethan Shanfeld Simon Cowell has one regret about One Direction: not owning the band name. On Stephen Bartlett’s “The Diary of a CEO” podcast, the television and music mogul discussed what made One Direction special and how he helped them reach success after forming the band on his series “The X Factor” and signing them to a record deal. “When I was talking to One Direction, I remember saying to them, ‘Our goal is for you to have enough hits that if you ever reform, that you can do stadium tours.