CARTOON MOVIE ­ Forum for Animated Film ­ Potsdam-Babelsberg

The fourth edition of CARTOON MOVIE, organized by Cartoon Brussels with support from the Filmboard Berlin-Brandenburg, was held at Studio Babelsberg in Potsdam, 14 - 16 March 2002, and welcomed 457 participants to the three-day forum, the highest attendance to date for the Babelsberg meet.
       With good reason: Germany is fast becoming a leading filmland for the production and distribution of animated cartoons. Besides seeking ways to foster the production and distribution of European animation, the spotlight was thrown on seven key players of the European animation film industry by asking the attending professionals to vote on awarding three Cartoon Movie Tributes 2002. The key tribute award ­ »for their global development strategy« ­ went to Rothkirch/Cartoon-Film for having negotiated an agreement with Warner Bros Film for the national and international distribution of their films Tobias Totz und sein Löwe (Tobias Totz and His Lion) and Der kleine Eisbär (The Little Polar Bear). The honor was well deserved, for Theo Rothkirch and Piet de Rycker’s The Little Polar Bear, produced by Rothkirch/Cartoon-Film and coproduced by Warner Bros Film, drew a hefty 2.6 million admissions at the German box office ­ in addition to another 200,000 on the Austrian market. The newly prepared English-language version was programmed at CARTOON MOVIE.
       It’s worth noting in this regard that one of the critically acclaimed entries at the 2001 Cannes festival was Shrek, a cartoon feature that spoofed the Grimm Brothers fairy tales and popular movie culture And the Golden Bear at this year’s Berlinale was shared by a Japanese animation feature film: Spirited Away ­ see report in this KINO issue.

­ Editors