66 animation projects selected from 111 submissions across Europe. The pitch selection for the 37th Cartoon Forum — organized as always by the Brussels-based Cartoon association, running September 14–17 in the French city of Toulouse — is a testament to the vitality of Europe’s animation industry. It also confirms that Cartoon Forum remains a place of opportunity and international collaboration against a backdrop of global economic uncertainty, where relationships are what turn ideas into reality. The lineup includes 61 series projects and 5 TV specials, for a total production volume of 330 hours and a combined budget of €283.58 million (averaging €4.30 million per production).
19 countries are represented as lead producers, with France once again topping the list with 32 projects, followed by Ireland (6), Germany (5), and Spain (4). The selection also includes 6 projects from Central and Eastern Europe and 6 from the Nordic countries. Only one project from Italy made the cut: To Be Tween, an eight-episode series. Eight protagonists, eight different stories, but a single dual setting: the Plautus 4.0 high school and the Metaverse, where the lives of eight students intertwine between reality and virtual space as they wrestle with fundamental questions — who am I, and who do I want to become? A Graphilm production for the tweens of its title, created by Anna Lucia Pisanelli and Maurizio Forestieri, who also directs, with artwork by Barbara Borsetti.
Also from Rome is Giulia Iacopini, creator and artist of the French series Emma Makes Waves — 52 episodes of 11 minutes each, developed with Julien Gallet — pitched by La Cabane Productions, the Paris-based company behind the 3D series Mush-Mush & the Mushables. The series follows nine-year-old Emma as she spends her first summer without her parents on a volcanic island where her grandparents and cousins live, discovering an unfamiliar sense of freedom.
Aimed instead at a young-adult and adult audience is another French project centered on a girl named Jasmine, produced by Marco Balsamo’s TeamTo, who takes refuge in an imaginary kingdom after a violent attack on her world, where she must find the courage to become the hero real life demands of her.
After Nolan’s Odyssey, an even bolder reworking of Greek mythology comes from the children’s series Le avventure di Icaro e Arianna, co-produced with Warsaw’s Wonder Legends Studio by Turin-based Primal Shape — also involved in the animated children’s series Food Wizards. In a world where technology and consumerism have pushed aside ancient beliefs, a combative princess and a reluctant hero must contend with the machinations of the gods and the everyday challenges of growing up.
The Spanish project Fantasy Riders follows a similar thread: after a Great Cataclysm, in a fractured world dominated by mutated beasts, it’s a girl who sets out on a journey to bring civilization back to life. Produced by Hampa Studio (Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles [Buñuel en el laberinto de las tortugas], winner of Best Animated Film at the European Film Awards), the children’s series is co-produced by the Spanish arm of Italian publisher Panini.
Drawn from the feature film Wolfwalkers, the final chapter in Cartoon Saloon’s acclaimed trilogy inspired by Irish mythology — three films, three Oscar nominations for Best Animated Feature — Mebh and the Wolf Pups is a preschool series project following Mebh, a spirited and adventurous girl, and her pack of four wolf cubs as they explore the forest, make new friends, and help the other animals who share their home.
10 years after My Life as a Zucchini, an Oscar nominee for Best Animated Feature, Swiss director Claude Barras is back with a 2D and stop-motion series produced by Haut et Court, following a five-year-old girl who, at bedtime, quizzes her father through Banane, her stuffed monkey. Banane Has Questions playfully poses big philosophical questions.
Among the other projects worth watching in Toulouse is Outside Kabul, a 60-minute special set in the summer of 2021, when the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan and the lives of two young women, Raha and Marwa, changed forever. Contacted by French journalist Caroline Gillet, Raha and Marwa recorded and exchanged hundreds of voice messages with her over several months. From these unique testimonies, the film draws a raw, intimate chronicle of two young women coming of age as the world they knew collapsed around them. A story of friendship, courage and resilience from Les Films du Poisson, co-directed by Gillet herself.
And following its initiative at the last Cartoon Movie in Bordeaux, Canadian animation makes its first appearance at Cartoon Forum too, as part of an effort to strengthen cooperation with Europe in light of the new political situation in the United States. Six projects — three from Quebec, three from other Canadian provinces — are looking for European co-producers. Finally, given the positive response to its first edition and the ongoing challenges facing the animation industry, Cartoon is renewing its Fill the Gap initiative for 2026, once again connecting producers of projects previously presented at Cartoon Forum with buyers, broadcasters, distributors and co-producers.
Read more: Cinema & Video International Issue #208
