Film list
Every full-length feature film produced and released in European cinemas 1926-now

In production
Full-length animated feature films currently in production in Europe


Upcoming US films
Animation films in production in US



Distributors
Contact details of companies who distribute animation

Funding
Where to apply for financial support




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

27 July 2010
It's been far too long since the last entry on this page, but I have been keeping the site up to date, with plenty of new additions to In Production, Upcoming US films and the database (see box, top right). To follow on from the last entry, The Illusionist has now got a UK release through Warner Bros and Pathe next month, while Jackboots on Whitehall (Vertigo Films, apparently, though it's not mentioned on their site at time of writing) and A Town Called Panic (Optimum Releasing, again not seemingly worth publicising) are coming out in October. Three Mills Film Studios could not confirm whether Tim Burton's stop-frame Frankenweenie was in production there... but referred me to Walt Disney Co.

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), 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


NEW!
Search function added to site:

You can now search Animation Europe's database of 300+ European films by title, nationality or director. Just type search term into the box above.

 

The site is updated on a fairly regular basis with news, and information about movies currently in production in Europe.

I will be very happy to hear from you if you have any news, missing films, or want to correct any errors.

Please do contact me with any missing information, comments or suggestions.

Tim Westcott

London, January 2008

 

 


All film images on the site are published with thanks to their creators and copyright holders. Everything else is © animation Europe 2006.