For prospective attendees, we would like to share some short interviews with the producers of some of the projects we picked. We hope that their words will help you to make the best use of the event!
Short interviews
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[title]A Greyhound of a Girl[/title]
Producers: Paul Thiltges Distributions (Luxembourg) / The Illuminated Film Company (United Kingdom) / Aliante (Italy)
Technique: 2D Computer / Drawing / Painting
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Question 1: Could you please let us know the key points of your animated film project which you would like to appeal to the prospective audience?
The team of A Greyhound of a Girl (Paul Thiltges, Enzo d’Alò, Adrien Chef and Iain Harvey): Animation is growing up – with the success and recognition of films like My Life as a Courgette (Zucchini), The Breadwinner and Loving Vincent, we feel confident that this beautiful tale, based on a novel by Roddy Doyle, is both timely and timeless. The film tells how our young heroine comes to terms with the imminent death of her Grandmother. Key to this are family relationships: four generations of women from the same family working together. The theme is not one of darkness, rather Enzo D’Alo’s interpretation is light, loving and full of comedy, with animation being the ideal way of handling the magical elements of the story.
Question 2: Who do you want to come to your pitch especially?
The team of A Greyhound of a Girl: The film is targeting family audiences, so we naturally hope that distributors and sales agents will be intrigued by how we approach this subject so beautifully and – let’s be realistic – commercially.
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[title]Dragonkeeper[/title]
Producers: Dragoia Media (Spain)
Technique: 3D Computer
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Question 1: Could you please let us know the key points of your animated film project which you would like to appeal to the prospective audience?
Manuel Cristóbal: Dragonkeeper is a CGI animation family film based on the first of the award-winning novels by Carole Wilkinson that have sold over 500.000 copies worldwide. Set in a magic, epic and classic China during follows the adventures of a slave girl that becomes a true Dragonkeeper helping the last imperial dragon in its quest to bring a dragon egg to the coast, to the only place it can hatch. It is a film for a wide audience with moving characters and Dragonkeeper aims to become an international brand and film franchise.
Question 2: Who do you want to come to your pitch especially?
Manuel Cristóbal: We are interested in closing a sales agent and long term partners for this franchise.
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[title]Hoodoo[/title]
Producer: Mozaic Productions (France) / Letko (Poland)
Technique: 2D Computer / 3D Computer / Drawing
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Question 1: Could you please let us know the key points of your animated film project which you would like to appeal to the prospective audience?
Fabrice Ziolkowski: Hoodoo is a family film (starting at age 10) for audiences everywhere. It’s rooted in the experience of a little African-American girl and in the blues, but it’s a universal story that touches on basic emotions and the overwhelming power of music to change and better our lives, wherever we come from. This is not unlike the screenplay I wrote for The Secret of Kells in which a 9th Century Irish boy wants to become an artist. Hoodoo is a musical film which will put various techniques forward in order to explore all that animation can do. Luanne has a journey to the land of the blues, full of magic and wonder. Musical direction will be assured by 4-time Grammy award winner Keb’Mo’.
Question 2: Who do you want to come to your pitch especially?
Fabrice Ziolkowski: We’re looking for another European partner (right now it’s France and Poland) to join us. Also an international sales agent.
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[title]The Boy Who Switched off the Sun[/title]
Producers: Fourth Wall Creative (United Kingdom)
Technique: 3D Computer
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Question 1: Could you please let us know the key points of your animated film project which you would like to appeal to the prospective audience?
Joe Moroney: Ours is a fun and entertaining movie which touches on the universal subjects of grief, loss and healing. We hope the audience sees something of themselves in the main characters and that the story’s emotional hook both resonates and delights.
Question 2: Who do you want to come to your pitch especially?
Joe Moroney: We’re looking for like-minded partners who can help us realise the ambition of telling this great universal story.
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[title]The Last Whale Singer[/title]
Producers: Telescope Animation (Germany)
Technique: 3D Computer / Stereoscopic 3D
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Question 1: Could you please let us know the key points of your animated film project which you would like to appeal to the prospective audience?
Maite Woköck: The Last Whale Singer is an epic and touching story with a good portion of humor that will appeal to an international audience. We aim to make true family entertainment. The magic of whales and a rich underwater world will give us plenty of opportunities to create a larger-than-life experience for the big screen. Humans have always been fascinated by whales and their song which is also the “brand” we are creating. In our story, the teenage humpback whale Vincent has to discover the true powers of his song, and on this journey he finds himself. The writer and director Reza Memari has just proven with Richard the Stork that he tells stories that attract broad audiences.
Question 2: Who do you want to come to your pitch especially?
Maite Woköck: We are at the very beginning of script development. In Bordeaux we are looking for co-producers, distributors and broadcasters to set up a financing structure. We are also looking for game and VR developers because we plan to create a cross-media experience.
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[title]Unicorn Wars[/title]
Producers: Autour de Minuit (France) / UniKo (Spain) / SCHMUBY PRODUCTIONS (France) / Abano Productions (Spain)
Technique: 2D Computer
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Question 1: Could you please let us know the key points of your animated film project which you would like to appeal to the prospective audience?
Autour de Minuit: Teddy bears and unicorns have been at war for as long as anyone can remember. A teddy bear regiment leaves the training camp for a mission that will end in a brutal and disastrous final battle.
Unicorn Wars is set to become an action story, a type of parody in the war genre involving warfare, but it hides a profoundly psychological and human story. Its strong points are its universality and timelessness; the story is an allegory about the human race and its conflicting relationship with nature, a biting and acerbic criticism on issues such as war, religion, pollution and power.
Alberto Vázquez, the director, seeks to combine and balance a solid narrative without relinquishing artistic and script content. The use of expressive colour and textures covering the illustration or the picture and traditional 2D animation with great attention to detail, separates this project from the flat mechanical appearance of television series. It looks like a contemporary animated commercial product that fits in with productions that have become international successes.
Unicorn Wars is a feature film targeting teenage and adult audiences. Irrespective of whether it is an animation project, there is a clear auteur perspective although the film attempts to reach a more general audience than Alberto’s previous feature, Psiconautas (Goya 2017 for Best Animated Feature Film). Unicorn Wars will be an ambitious, original and universal project with a clear international calling, as it combines the war genre with a humorist and psychological story: a cross between “Apocalypse Now” and “Bambi”.
Question 2: Who do you want to come to your pitch especially?
Autour de Minuit: The film is a co-production between Spain, France and Belgium. We are looking for Regional partners in France to make the animation, a studio in Belgium to possibly do the compositing, and in terms of financing we are looking for a french distributor and a ales agent.
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