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S potlight
Toon Travels
Spring means one thing for animation business pros — trips to conferences in such exotic locales as Cannes, Venice and Stuttgart. By Tom McLean. Racking up those frequent- flier miles is almost a rite of passage each spring, as animation executives, distributors, and creatives flock to essential business events. If you couldn’t make it — we missed you! — here’s an update on what generally went down at MIP TV, Cartoons on the Bay and FMX.
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MIP TV
ore than 11,000 delegates from more than 100 countries — including 4,000 buyers — assembled April 13-16 in Cannes, France, for the international television market known as MIP TV. Packing the Palais des Festivals from top to bottom — and spilling out along the beachfront hotels along the Croisette — MIP TV was nonetheless described by many veterans as slow compared to previous years. While the meetings flew fast and furious, most of the major deals were announced in advance. Among them: ¸ Paris-based animation producer Millimages secured presales for its non-dialog short format series Molang (104 x 3’30”) with Tele Quebec (Canada), Disney (Latin America), SVT (Sweden), MTV Oy (Finland) and NRK (Norway). The first 52-episode season will be completed by November, with the second due summer 2016. ¸ Mondo TV Suisse reached an agreement for the co-production and distribution of the fourth season of the animated TV series based on the successful toy characters YooHoo and Friends, owned by Aurora. The series will be composed of 52 episodes about 11 minutes each, in 3D CGI. ¸ The French group AB acquired the TV and DVD rights to Toei Animation’s Saint Seiya: Soul of Gold, the newest chapter in Toei’s internationally successful Saint Seiya franchise. The channel will simulcast the original version subtitled in French. The online platform Crunchyroll acquired the VOD rights to the series and will broadcast it online in Europe except in France and all the French-speaking European territories. Moreover, a Soul of Gold dedicated channel also will be launched for Italian fans on YouTube. ¸ NCircle Entertainment picked up VOD and home video rights in the U.S. and Canada for Russian-produced CG kids series Alisa Knows 72 www.animationmagazine.net june 15
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A “Cannes-do” spirit for animation producers, distributors and buyers of all strips was in evidence at MIP TV 2015.
What to Do! The show is produced by Timur Bekmambetov’s Bazelevs Group, Riki Group and Animation Studio Moskva, with one 12-episode season complete and a second in production. NCircle plans to launch the brand in North America early next year. ¸ Paris-based Cyber Group Studios secured new sales for its series across the globe. Top selling CGS shows include Zou (104 x 11), which has sold to TVO (Canada), Mediacorp (Singapore) and IRIB (Iran) recently; Mini Ninjas (52 x 11), picked up by TV3 (Thailand), Mediacorp (Singapore) and TV5 Monde (worldwide); The Long, Long Holiday (10 x 26 or 5 x 50), presold to ZDF (Germany) and DR (Denmark); and Balloopo (52 x 11), acquired by Thai PBS (Thailand) and IRIB (Iran). CGS has also closed a raft of package deals for Animalia (40 x 24), Adam’s Bakery (52 x 13), Raju the Rickshaw (78 x 7), Grenadine & Peppermint (78 x 7), Mademoiselle Zazie (78 x 7) and Mia (39 x 11) to broadcasters including TV2 (Norway), JKN (Thailand), Mediacorp, IRIB, Pixel TV (Ukraine) and POD Worldwide (Thailand).
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Cartoons on the Bay
roceedings were noticeably more intimate at the 18th Cartoons on the Bay, a festival and professional program held April 16-18 in Venice. Israel was the guest country, chosen because it is technologically advanced and is home to a large number of tech startups and innovators, said Costanza Escaplon, president of RAI Com. In addition to honoring Albert Hanan Kaminski with a Pulcinella Career Award, a panel explored the nation’s animated works with director Liran Kapel, Talit Communications’ Ron Isaak, Animix Festival’s Dudu Shalita, director Yuval Nathan, Snowball Studios’ Yoni Cohen and Israeli diplomat Eldad Golan. A panel on women in animation featured Lindsay Watson of Animated Women U.K. continued on page 74
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