WELCOME
to Animation Europe, the first site dedicated to
producers, distributors, investors and anyone else interested in film
and TV animation in Europe.
This site
hosts the most comprehensive list of all full-length animated feature
films produced and theatrically released in Europe - starting with Lotte
Reiniger's The Adventures of Prince Achmed in 1926 and carrying
on to the most recent releases.
You will
also find details of all the animated movies currently in production
in Europe, a list of distribution companies which have released European
movies in the major territories, some good websites offering information
about the animation business, and the latest addition, a news page.
News
briefs
28 February
2010
Change
to the programme of this week's Cartoon Movie in Lyon: there will a
screening of images from Sylvain Chomet's The Illusionist as opposed
to the whole film. Makes me wonder what is amiss with this long in gestation
follow up to the Oscar-nominated Triplettes de Belleville. The film
seems to have been shown at Berlin earlier this month and got this
favourable write-up (though not a full-scale review) from Wendy
Ide in The Times. Clips from the film can also be found on You Tube
here.
16
February 2010
In
a first for an animated movie based on a 9th Century book, The Secret
of Kells has been nominated for this year's animated film Academy
Award. This makes it the fifth European movie to be nominated since
the category was introduced in 2001, the others being Les Triplettes
de Belleville (2003), The Corpse Bride and Wallace and
Gromit: The Curse of the Wererabbit (2005) and Persepolis
(2007). Not a bad record for a truly European effort from Ireland's
Cartoon
Salon, Les Armateurs and Vivi Film. I actually really enjoyed the
film (which in an era of overblown 3D crafts real beauty out of two
dimensions), but Up seems close to a dead cert to bring Pixar its fifth
award next month. Wider release for Kells might, of course, be the real
upside for the film's nomination.
10
February 2010
Cartoon
Movie will be in Lyon on 3-5 March this year. New films being presented,
currently in production and added to the In
Production page, are: Lotte and the Moonstone Secret from
Eesti Joonisfilm (of Estonia) and Rija Films (Latvia); Moomins and
the Comet Chase from Oy Filmkompaniet Alpha AB (Finland); Project
Chopin - The Flying Machine from Denis Friedman Productions (France)
and BreakThru Films (Poland); Ramon (IB Cinema, Spain) and The Great
Bear (Copenhagen Bombay, Denmark). Another 11 films in development
will be presented and the eight films completed and screened include
Around the World in 50 Years from stereoscopic 3D specialists
nWave and Yona Yona Penguin (Denis Friedman Prods). There will
also be a special screening for Sylvain Chomet-directed The Illusionist.
21
November 2009
The
first-ever Czech stereoscopic 3D film is in production, with release
set for next year. Fimfarum 3 is, as the name suggests, the third of
a series which started in 2002 with the highly successful Fimfarum Jana
Wericha. Maur Film
in Prague is co-producing with Czech TV, ACE and Kratky Film as well
as HBO. As with the previous films, Fimfarum 3 will be stop-frame and
the producers have developed their own 3D technology. Hope it gets some
sort of release outside its home country.
30 September
2009
The European Film
Academy is introducing an annual award for best animated feature
film. Three films will be selected by a committee of experts and the
award will be made at the EFA event in Bochum, Germany, on 12 December.
The Academy, made up of more than 2,000 film professionals in Europe,
was founded in 1988. Seems like a good idea to give European animators
a bit of the limelight.
UPDATE (27 October)... And the nominations are: Mia and the
Migou directed by Jacques-Rémy Girerd, produced by Folimage
(France) and pictured below; Niko
and the Way to the Stars by Kari Juusonen and Michael Hegner, produced
by Anima Vitae, Cinemaker (Finland), Ulysses (Germany), A. Film (Denmark)
and Magma Films (Ireland), and The Secret of Kells by Tomm Moore,
produced by Cartoon Saloon (Ireland), Les Armateurs (France) and Vivi
Film (Belgium).
14 September
2009
Iginio Straffi, the creator of the Winx Club franchise and
CEO of animation studio Rainbow told me today that production of the
second Winx Club movie is 75% complete at its Rome CGI studio.
Pre-production has started on a third feature film with the working
title Gladiator Academy, a comedy set in ancient Rome and penned
by one of the writers of Ice Age. The first movie, Winx –
Il Segreto del Regno Perduto, came out in 2007 and registered
a repectable 840,000 admissions in Italy and another 395,000 in France.
6 June
2009
New additions
to the in production page
include la Nuit des Enfants Rois, a French film made using motion
capture due out next year. The sci fi type film is based on (what I’m
guessing is) a cult novel by Bernard Lenteric about five children who
are mugged in Central Park but take their revenge in what presumably
is a clever way (they are geniuses). One of their friends tries to stop
them. The film is being made in stereoscopic 3D; one of a handful of
European films being made in the format that Hollywood is backing in
a big way. The others are Holy Night (Dygra Films - above)
and, Rock the Boat (Gaumont) and Around the World in 50
Years (nWave).
2 May
2009
Aardman Animations has started production on two new feature films,
both of which will be distributed by Sony Pictures: Arthur Christmas
and Pirates!. Arthur Christmas is written by Peter Baynham
(a comedy writer whose credits include Borat the Movie) and Sarah
Smith, who also directs. It will be a CGI film with Sony Pictures Imageworks
collaborating on the animation. Pirates! is based on books by
Gideon Defoe and will be a stop-motion movie directed by Peter Lord,
Nick Park and Jeff Newitt with Defoe writing the script. Both projects
have been around for a while (as reported on 24 July 2008) so release
dates could be 2010, or even 2011.
1 February
2009
Films being
presented at next month's Cartoon Movie (held for the first time in
Lyons) include a couple I had not heard about and which have duly been
added to the In Production page. Egill, the Last Pagan, is based
on an Icelandic saga and is being produced by a puppet animation studio
in Poland and Hungary's Lichthof, producers of the successful Nyocker.
From Belgium comes Suske en Wiske, based on a comic strip and
set in Texas - or at least in the parallel universe that is Belgian
comic strip artists' reimagined version of Texas. Or so I imagine.
Speaking
of Belgian comic strip artists, I am increasingly disturbed to hear
more news of Stephen Spielberg's movie version of Tintin this week.
Apparently the film will be an adaptation of Red Rackham's Treasure
(Le Tresor de Rackham le Rouge for French-speakers and Tintinophiles
pretentieux, comme moi), with the main characters created in motion-capture
and voiced by, inter alia, Jamie Bell (as Tintin), Captain Haddock (Andy
Serkis), Simon Pegg and Nick Frost (Thomson and Thompson). More detail
here,
including the detail that new characters will be introduced including
Tintin's editor (famously, Tintin is a celebrated reporter who never
actually files a story) and an American Interpol agent.
I must
avoid knee-jerk reactions, but I'm worried. I grew up on Tintin, mostly
reading the English translations by Leslie Lonsdale-Cooper and Michael
Turner, blissfully unaware of Tintin's nationality. Moulinsart? An English
country house, of course - Marlinspike Hall. I only found out Sir Francis
Haddock was actually a Frenchman when I was about 30. That's a tribute
to the brilliance of their work, which is a shining example of sensitive
translation - preserving and enriching Herge's humour and seamlessly
bringing his wonderful characters to life in another language. I just
worry whether Spielberg and the writers are up to it, or will 'reinterpret'
the books for coke-quaffing multiplex audiences. I am almost tempted
to start some sort of campaign to preserve Tintin from defilement.
23 December
2008
Just made a few improvemments to the In Production and Upcoming
US film releases pages. I am planning to keep a better track of European
films which have been completed but not released, plus the handful of
movies which cross the borders of this fair continent.
I couldn't help noticing how many films which must be in an advanced
stage of production but have no confirmed release date. By my count,
there are ten films due to come out in 2009 but which have no
firm premiere date. Why is this? Is the recession starting to hit movie
distribution? Or is it another clear sign of the main weakness with
the European movie industry - marketing and distribution. Why, after
so much working raising the money and making these films, do so many
disappear into a void? Where's the commitment from distributors? I've
always felt it's easy to hide behind the excuse that European films
are not always that good. After all, a lot of Hollywood studio movies
aren't that good, but they still have guaranteed backing from distributors...
and a firm launch date for the production teams to work towards.
On which note, may I wish all readers - and anyone who happens on this
site - a peaceful and happy holiday and all the best for 2009!!
24 November
2008
The long list of films up for an animated movie Academy Award includes
four films produced in Europe as well as Israeli feature Waltz with
Bashir. Euro films include Fly me to the Moon and Dragon
Hunters as well as Igor, financed by US company Exodus Film
Group but made at Sparx in Paris, and The Tale of Despereaux,
madeat Framestore in London for US studio Universal. A total of 14 films
are on the long list, announced earlier this month, and will be winnowed
to a shortlist of three on 22 January. Sticking my neck out, I would
imagine the Wall-E and Kung Fu Panda are certs for the
shortlist – the question is, which will be the third one?
9 November
2008
Continuing a strong tradition of locally-produced films doing well
in the Nordic market this year, Kurt Blur Grisom (Kurt Turns
Evil) was second top-rated film in Norway in its first week on release
(week ending 3rd Nov), with 34,467 admissions. The movie, about a mild-mannered
truck driver who reaches the end of his tether when someone tells him
his job is not important, was directed by Rasmus Sivertsen and produces
at Qvisten Animation studios. More on the Norwegian Film Institute website.
Meanwhile in Denmark, A-Film's Rejsen til Saturn (Journey to
Saturn) has racked up admissions of 380,977 after five weeks on release
and Disco Ormene (Sunshine Barry and the Disco Worms) has 139,387
after four. Data from the DFI website.
30 October
2008
Production of Un Monstre a Paris has been suspended, according
to Variety. The film, in production at Bibo Films in Paris, was
due to be released in April 2010. The article cites a shortage of cash
as the reason for the hiatus and cites a budget of $35m (correct figure
appears to be more like €22m, about $29m). Confusingly, the article
quotes Pascal Herold saying that it is impossible to raise funding for
an animated film 'unless you're a movie mogul with an international
profile like Luc Besson'. Besson is head of EuropaCorp, which is to
distribute Un Monstre a Paris. The same article also says Gaumont
is struggling to raise the $35m budget for its planned stereoscopic
3D feature, Rock the Boat. Is recession already taking its toll
on European animation? I also heard that Thor - The Edda Chronicles,
due to be produced in Iceland, has run into difficulties.
18 October
2008
Niko – lentäjän poika (Niko and the Way to
the Stars) was the number one rated film in Finland the first week after
its release on 10 October. Total admissions were 22,966, with 66 prints
on release; to put it in context, last year's top-rated film in Finland
was the Simpsons movie with about 400,000 admissions - so this is a
great start and the Christmas-themed film has sold all over the place
(the Weinstein Co. has American rights). The film, the first full-length
animated effort from Anima Vitae, is co-produced with Denmark's A-Film,
Magma Films (Ireland) and Ulysses (Germany). Also making its debut was
Disco Ormene (Sunshine Barry and the Disco Worms) in Denmark,
with 23,433 admissions from 84 prints. Three more European-produiced
films are out this week: Goat Story in the Czech Republic,
Der Mondbär in Germany and Igor (produced at Sparx in
Paris) in the UK.
8 September
2008
White Shark has completed its first feature-length animation film,
Gnomes and Trolls – The Secret Chamber. According to the
Swedish computer animation company’s website,
the sales agent NonStop Sales has already sold the film to 69 territories.
The film, described as an action/adventure comedic fairy tale, is already
completed and was screened at the Norwegian Film festival earlier this
month. The film was made in English and directed by Robert Rhodin with
Joel Cohen and Alec Sokolow, who were scriptwriters on Toy Story,
credited as executive producers. No word on exact theatrical release
date. White Shark is already at work on a sequel, Gnomes and Trolls
2 – the Forest Trials and in 2010 will launch viking saga Astrid
Silverlock.
4 September
2008
It’s
been a quiet summer in terms of new animated movie releases, with European
distributors leaving the market wide open for the two big US blockbusters,
Kung Fun Panda and Wall E. However, September is shaping
up to be a busy month, with at least four new releases due to make their
debut in European cinemas:
El Espiritu del Bosque (Spirit of the Forest), the long-awaited
follow-up to El Bosque Animado from Spanish studio Dygra Films and Portugal’s
Appia Filmes, is due out in Spain next week (12 September). El Bosque
Animado was a big domestic hit and exported to several countries
including France, Italy and Germany.
Brendan and the Secret of Kells, produced by Cartoon Salon of
Ireland with France and Belgium, is being released at some point by
Walt Disney in Ireland. The film (below) was presented in Dublin last
week but there’s no mention of the Irish commercial release on
the Disney site. However the film has won something ungrammatically
called the Directors Finders Series which means it will be screened
to an audience of distributors in Los Angeles on 19 Sept. Incredibly,
this film seems to have no release lined up in the UK, though it will
be coming out in France and Belgium.
Mamma Mu och Kråkan is meanwhile released in Sweden later
in the month while Rejsen til Saturn, from Denmark’s prolific
and humorous A-Film is out in Denmark.
27 July
2008
More news on Planet One, the CGI feature film in production
at Ilion Animation Studios in Madrid: the movie will be distributed
in Spain by DeAPlaneta, which is also taking DVD rights, while earlier
this month, US rights were picked up by Sony Pictures. It seems that
rights were previously with New Line but were dropped by Warner Bros
when it took control of the studio. Planet 51 - about a US astronaut
who crash lands on a planet similar to 1950s America and inhabited by
little green men whose only fear is alien invasion is Ilion's first
and is currently in production with release pencilled in for November
2009. The budget is now a hefty €40m/$64m (more than the original
$50m). The movie is co-produced with Worldwide Biggies, aNew York based
company, and international sales are through the UK's HandMade Films.
24 July
2008
According to an interview
with Aardman Animations' Nick Park in this week’s Media
Guardian, three films from the Bristol studio are “about to
be green-lit”. They are: Pirates, directed by Peter Lord;
The Cat Burglars, from Curse of the Were-Rabbit co-director
Steve Box; and Arthur Christmas. All three will be funded
by Sony Pictures and according to the piece can be expected to combine
model animation with CGI.
Since Flushed Away and the demise of its agreement with Dreamworks
Animation, Aardman has been busy producing TV series and a forthcoming
half-hour Wallace and Gromit special for the BBC, A Matter of Loaf
and Death.
A brief trawl of the web suggest indicates that Pirates will
be based on the cult books by Gideon Defoe about a loveable but incompetent
Victorian pirate captain. This was back in June 2006... so they must
be pretty well advanced. (Things don't move fast in the West Country.)
The Cat Burglars is a comedy caper about stray cats trying to
steal milk, written by the creators of the BBC series Life on Mars.
Meanwhile Arthur Christmas, (I am guessing) previously known
as Operation Rudolph, is an action-comedy created by Peter Baynham,
one of the writers on the Borat movie.
This is great news (the greenlighting bit), especially as recession
clouds loom, but I wonder. The entire output of the long Dreamworks/Aardman
relationship was only three films released over six years and at least
one stillborn project (Tortoise and the Hare). And the Sony deal
is "first-look", which doesn't apply any definite financial
support from the studio. Will it be brave enough to give the studio
its creative head?
15 July
2008
France's
film support body the CNC has introduced a new funding scheme to support
the development of stereoscopic 3D animation. The NTP ('nouvelles technologies
en production') will provide grants to French producers to defray the
costs of using and developing 3D. First project to be supported is a
pilot for Occho Kohoi, a planned feature film from TEAMTO that
was presented at Cartoon Movie earlier this year. The grant is for €60,000.
Link to TEAMTO's presentation of the movie here.
21 June
2008
Two additions to the in production
page: Totally Spies! le film is being produced by Marathon Media
and Studio 37 (film subsidiary of France Telecom) and Magic Crystal
is in production by Epidem Zot in Finland and Cartoon One in Italy.
I have also been busy adding hundreds of images to the searchable database
of films.
9 May
2008
Dygra Films is producing five films in stereoscopic 3D. The first, Noche
de Paz (Holy Night), is already in production and is due
to be completed in summer 2009 for release at Christmas 2009. After
that, the studio (website here)
plans to release on film every year for the next five years. The movie
is set on Christmas Eve in a house where Santa Claus and the elves live
in the tree and the shepherds, three wise men etc live in the Nativity
scene. An alarm goes off and both worlds battle to save the season of
peace from disaster. La Coruna-based Dygra was a European pioneer in
CGI animation and is now looking to capitalise on the expected boom
in 3D (the kind you need special glasses to wear). From next year, all
Dreamworks and most Disney animation releases will be in 3D (as well
as 2D).
April
2008
Search function added to site: You can now search Animation Europe's
database of 300+ European films by title, nationality
or director.
10 April
2008
Disney announced several new projects on its upcoming animated film
slate. Starting with Up, due out in the US in May 2009 all Pixar
films will be made in stereoscopic 3D. All details of Disney films have
been added to the US releases
page on this site. With Dreamworks SKG also releasing its next films
in steroscopic 3D, this type of film is getting heavy support for the
majors. They are hoping it will get more bums on seats and massively
increase box office - the digital cinema market is growing fast, all
films will still be released as usual in 2D, and Blu-Ray DVD sales (in
the US) are going strong. Fly Me to The Moon is the only European
film made in this format and I know of only one other in production
(Gaumont's Rock the Boat), so the gap between Europe and the
US in terms of box office risks growing wider (unless the Pixar/DWA
films all flop, which is fairly unlikely).
9 March
2008
The tenth CARTOON Movie in Potsdam last week was a perfect opportunity
to assess the health of European feature film animation. There were
530 people attending, including 146 investors and 71 distributors, according
to CARTOON, which is supported by the European Commission and which
gets funding from the Land Berlin Brandenburg for the annual Movie event.
This year's crop of films was 48 in total, with 10 completed, 12 in
development, 10 in production and 16 in concept (ie at a very early
stage of development).
CARTOON
president Marc Vanderweyer presented some figures on the first ten years
of the event's life which cast it in a generally favourable light. Since
1999, 123 of the 305 films presented at CARTOON Movie secured full financing,
including 24 which still in production, a success rate of 40 per cent.
Overall budgets were €800m, or an average of €6.75m per film.
Admissions in the EU to European animated films grew from four million
in 2003 to 25 million in 2005. Admissions for all animation films (ie
including US and Japanese films) were 51m in 2003 and 122m in 2005.
Marc
said this 140 per cent increase in the audience for films showed there
is still hope for more growth for the industry. He also pointed to increasing
investment from distributors and commented that authors and concepts
are much stronger than they were 10 years ago. He singled out Didier
Brunner of Les Armateurs and Thilo Rothkirch of Cartoon Film (of Berlin)
are the stars of the industry because of the strong box office record
of their films. Finally, Marc said a strong network of producers and
investors is emerging (networks are a big preoccupation of those who
run EU media support schemes).
He
also mentioned some negatives: the lack of pan-European distribution;
a tendency for some films to go into production too quickly without
proper work on scripts; the lack of involvement of the UK, where there
is little funding for producers and where distributors are averse to
investing in European films.
Of
course you cannot measure the health of an industry just by looking
at the growth of films produced: how many actually covered their costs,
and how many investors made a return on their investment? Well, a lot
of the €800m (most of it, probably) was either public subsidy money
which investors usually do not expect to recoup, and another chunk from
broadcasters buying rights (often, in Europe, because they are obliged
to support local production). A small amount would come from producers,
distributors and investors: these would clearly be hoping to recoup
or even make a profit.
How
many have managed to do so? Undoubtedly there have been several European
films which have been successful at the box office. CARTOON said that
nine per cent of the projects presented sold over two million tickets,
17 per cent over one million, 25 per cent over 500,000 and 40 per cent
over 300,000. Assuming an average ticket costs five euros, that converts
into 9 per cent of movies making €10m at the box office and 17
per cent making €5m.
Of
course, some producers make films for much more than the average €6.75m
and some for much less, so it's difficult to say how many films make
money. But it seems reasonable to assume that a majority don't make
money.
Much
of the anecdotal evidence is negative. I spoke to Marc du Pontavice
of Xilam about Tous a l'Ouest, released on 5 December in France.
The break-even target was 1.4 million admissions, and it got only 600,000.
The film cost €12m and €2m was spent on P&A in France.
Filmax spent €14m on making DonkeyXote and €1.5m on
P&A and is not expecting to recoup. Filmax's most successful film
has been the cheapest (The Hairy Tooth Fairy, €2.5m) and
the company's Paco Rodriguez says it is now focusing on low cost live
action/animation films to improve its chances of making money. Other
people also mentioned disappointing admissions for local films in Germany
and recently for Peur(s) du Noir in France.
It's
tempting to think that many European producers are cocooned from these
harsh realities by public funding schemes and tax shelters. As long
as their studios are kept in work year-in, year-out, their main goal
is achieved and if one project fails, there's always the next CNC, Filmboard
or Eurimages funding round to look forward to. As a European tax-payer,
I can tolerate this: I would prefer us to have some sort of infrastructure
and talent base and am ready to accept a high failure rate.
But
it's still the case that most Europeans, if they choose to go to an
animated film, tend to go to an American one, and that is largely because
there are too many badly made films being pumped onto the market. I
am sure some good films are dragged down because the public perception
is so negative. The bonds of that network - between producers and financiers
- need to get stronger and European producers need to increase their
success rate, or the flow of funding will start to dry up.
9 March
2008
Locally-made films captured 13 per cent of the German box office in
2007 (2.8m admissions), while US films dominated with 82 per cent. Overall
admissions were 18.4m, according to figures published by the Federal
Film Board (FFA). By far the most successful German animated film was
Lissi und der Wilde Kaiser (2.2m) but others (Das Doppelte
Lottchen, Die Drei Rauber) made little impact. Overall share
for European films was 18 per cent (including Flushed Away with
258,000 and Arthur and the Minimoys with 695,000).
4 March
2008
Just added to the site is a page on future US animation releases,
here. With nine more
films (at least) due to be released in the rest of the year, it's become
a crowded market. As well as Disney and Dreamworks, Fox and Sony have
become active in the movie market, with Paramount and Warner Bros, indepedents
like the Weinstein Company and European and Japanese films all jostling
for position. The bar for what makes a successful movie has been raised
further and further and the gulf between Hollywood and Europe has widened.
In the Dreamworks Animation conference call, the company mentioned that
it kept about $300m in cash on its books at all time to enable it to
finance about two films. That's enough for about 20-30 European movies!
25 February
2008
Admissions to animated films in France were more than 27.1m in 2007,
with French films accounting for 19% of ticket sales. European films
(including French) accounted for 21% while US films captured 68.4% of
the market. The biggest film was Luc Besson's Arthur et les Minimoys:
released in 2006, the film registered 7.8m sales, putting it second
only to 2003's Finding Nemo (9.2m) in recent years (and perhaps
all time). Otherwise, admissions to French films were quite disappointing:
Persepolis (1.2m) was the only other hit, with Tous a l'Ouest
(377,000, though it did open in Dec) and La Reine Soleil (230,000)
nowhere near. Pixar's Ratatouille (7.7m), which yesterday won
best animated feature Oscar, was the top film of the year.
26 January
2008
Persepolis made the shortlist of three films for the Animated
Feature Academy Award this year. The French film, directed by Marjane
Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud, qualifies because it was released in
the US by Sony Pictures Classics. Great news for the much-praised film
after it failed to make the list of films nominated for the foreign-language
Oscar. The two other films on the shortlist are Pixar’s Ratatouille
and Surf’s Up from Sony. There were only three films rather
than five because there has to be a field of at least eight movies considered
by the Academy to be eligible. Films must have been released in Los
Angeles county to qualify - explanation of the rules here.
24 January
2008
The 10th edition of Cartoon Movie will be held in Potsdam/Babelsberg
(Germany) from 5th to 7th March. The European films being presented
included some completed, some in production, in development and in concept.
The number of films in concept has been cut dramatically down over the
years. But there are still 11 projects looking for funding. French projects
predominate, though les Armateurs (with Ernest & Celestine)
is the only studio I've heard of (that is probably largely due to my
ignorance). There's also a Belgian project from la Parti and Belgian/French
film, Sambora, as well as the well-backed German movie 7 Dwarves.
Among the eight completed films being screened there was just one which
was off Animation Europe's radar - Mocland and the Legend of the
Aloma from Forma Armada in Spain (which looks like a TV movie to
me (link),
and I have also added Goat Story from Prague's Art and Animation
Studio to the In production page. This year I will be at Cartoon Movie,
so maybe see you there.
5 January
2008
The list of upcoming films on the In
Production page has just been updated: 2008 looks as if it will
be relatively quiet in terms of US releases, with Fox bringing out Dr
Seuss' Horton Hears a Who in the spring, Kung Fu Panda from
Dreamworks and Wall-E from Disney/Pixar in the summer and Madagascar
2 in November, also from Dreamworks. Plenty of room either from
the US majors to bring forward the launch of other movies like Bolt
(Disney) or The Tale of Despereaux (produced in London by Universal
and because it's UK qualified by the UK Film Council just added to In
Production).
As far as European films are concerned, there are plenty of interesting
films due to come out this year: Peur(s) du Noir, Max and
Co and Brendan and the Secret of Kells to name but three.
I will be reviewing the performance of 2007's crop of European features
as soon as I can compile the admissions data.
The brilliant Persepolis will finally get an airing outside France:
it's being released in Italy (Feb), the UK (April) and Germany (November)
and hopefully many other countries, while Azur and Asmar and
Ugly Duckling and Me are both coming to the UK in 2008.
