Stuttgart’s 13th annual business conference, held as part of ITFS and FMX, honors several projects from 50 selected for competition.
STUTTGART, GERMANY – The 13th edition of Animation Production Days (APD) drew to a close in Stuttgart this past Friday, finishing up with over 800 one-on-one meetings between producers and potential production and financing partners for new animation projects. APD is the most important business platform for animation projects in Germany and takes place every year as part of the Stuttgart International Festival of Animated Film (ITFS) and FMX – Conference on Animation, Effects, Games and Immersive Media.
This year, the jury selected 50 projects with a combined production value of around 180 million Euros for presentation at the conference. Alongside classic children’s series and family films, cross-media concepts, games, VR projects and online formats were also represented, including numerous projects for teenage and adult audiences. Subject matters ranged from edutainment, comedy, adventure stories and fantasy for kids, to historical and political material, animated documentaries, satire and science fiction. The 165 participants from 23 countries discussed financing strategies and cooperation for these projects in one-on-one meetings and at various APD networking events.
Award Ceremony as the Closing Event
This year, the program once again culminated in the animation festival’s Trickstar Professional Awards Gala. As part of the gala, the ITFS presents business-related prizes such as the German Animation Screenplay Award, which this year went to Xavier Romero and Llorenç Español for the screenplay “Aisha’s Light;” the prize for Germany’s Next Animation Talent, which went to Elisabeth Jakobi for her project “Juli auf dem Zauberberg (Juli on the Magic Mountain);” and the Arab Animation Forum Pitching Award which went to the project "Traitors of the Eyes" by Abdelrahman Dnewar und Saad Dnewar. In addition, the Trickstar Business Award, which recognizes new business models in the animation industry, was awarded for the third time. This year’s winner was the Danish company Copenhagen Bombay with their project “CoboStories,” with a Special Mention going to “Smosh Mosh” by Kinky Udders Ludwigsburg, a project that was also presented at the 2019 APD.
As part of the cooperation with CARTOON, European Association of Animation, two German producers once again this year are being given the opportunity to pitch their series project at the CARTOON Forum taking place in Toulouse in September. The first two places on the list went to “Boots & Paws" (Studio Soi Filmproduktion) and “Spookies” (Wolkenlenker). Tradewind Pictures may present their project "Tafiti - Through the Desert" at CARTOON Movie next year in Bordeaux.
“A spirit of optimism is prevailing in the industry, something we also noticed in the high number and consistently excellent quality of the submitted projects. There is a huge programming demand from the buyers. For this reason, we are confident that many of these projects will find a successful path to production,” said Marlene Wagener, Head of APD.
Prof. Andreas Hykade, Conference Chair FMX and Co-Organizer of APD, commented, “We are particularly delighted that up-and-coming talents presented such original and highly promising projects at this year’s APD. Young filmmakers are using their short films as springboards for ambitious series with international appeal. Hopefully, these talents will find the partners to help them finance and produce their projects.”
Alongside German TV channels ZDF, KiKA, SWR, HR, MDR, Super RTL and Disney, big European and international broadcasters were also represented including the BBC, Canal+, France Télévisions, Turner, Sony Pictures Television and DHX, as well as numerous world sales agents. Streaming services such as Amazon Prime Video and Hopster also proved to be popular meeting partners. Over 300 visitors attended this year’s APD Conference which took place on Thursday afternoon in the rotunda of Stuttgart’s L-Bank, and which was also open to industry guests from FMX and ITFS.
Source: Animation Production Days
