Cartoon Movie Unveils 8 Eurimages Co-Pro Nominees

The Council of Europe’s Eurimages Fund and Cartoon have joined forces once again to determine this year’s winner of the Eurimages Co-production Development Award. A cash-prize of €20,000, this award was created to promote the Fund’s role in encouraging international co-production from the initial stages of a project — while recognizing the special qualities and strengths of these animated feature collaborations.

Eight of the 57 projects in various stages of creation selected to present at Cartoon Movie (March 8-10) have been nominated:

At the Ark at 8

Produced by Zooper Film (Germany) – Co-produced by Now Films (Germany), Parka Pictures (Denmark) & Hydralab (Denmark)

• Based on the suc­cess­ful nov­el by Ulrich Hub, ​At the Ark at 8 is an updat­ed ver­sion of the sto­ry of Noah’s Ark. At the Ark at 8 is nar­rat­ed from the per­spec­tive of three pen­guins break­ing the only-two-of-each-species-rule by secret­ly embark­ing the Ark as three­some, explor­ing with humor and insight ancient and con­tem­po­rary ques­tions raised by the bib­li­cal myth.

Born Happy

Produced by Atom Art (Latvia) – Co-produced by Letko (Poland) & Pikkukala (Finland)

• Dur­ing sum­mer break, nine‑year-old Ilze joins her fam­i­ly in the rain­for­est where they live with the Pemon tribe close to the Devil’s moun­tain. When Mom needs to fly Dad to a hos­pi­tal, Ilze vol­un­teers to look after her three‑year-old broth­er, Alex. How­ev­er, instead of pay­ing atten­tion to her broth­er, Ilze’s nose is stuffed in a book. When final­ly Ilze looks up, she dis­cov­ers that Alex has dis­ap­peared into the jun­gle. Excit­ing and some­times risky adven­tures unfold as she sets out to find him before their parents return.

Flow

Produced by Dream Well (Latvia) – Co-produced by Sacrebleu Productions (France) & CINÉ-LITTÉ Productions (Germany)

• After a ter­ri­ble flood wreaks hav­oc on the world, a stub­born­ly inde­pen­dent cat is forced to share a small boat with a group of oth­er ani­mals. Get­ting along with them turns out to be an even greater chal­lenge for him than sur­viv­ing the flood.

Living Large

Produced by Barletta (Czech Republic) – Co-produced by Novanima Productions (France) & NOVINSKI (Slovakia)

• It is the begin­ning of the school year. At 13 years old, Ben dis­cov­ers the effects of puber­ty on his class­mates, who have changed a lot — espe­cial­ly Claire, who is now real­ly pret­ty. Ben would like her to notice him, but he is hung up on his weight, and even the school nurse wor­ries about him. Despite his pas­sion for cook­ing, Ben decides to go on a long and dif­fi­cult diet. To face the bul­ly­ing from Max and his gang, Ben can count on the sup­port of his crazy fam­i­ly and his friends Claire, Eric and Sonia. They start a band for the Christ­mas show, at the end of a year that made them all grow up, with con­fi­dence in them­selves, in life and in love.

Melvile

Produced by Need Productions (Belgium) – Co-produced by Creative Touch Studios (France) & Special Touch Studios (France)

• After more than 25 years of absence, Paul Rivest returns to Melvile. He knows this lit­tle town pret­ty well, hav­ing spent all his sum­mer vaca­tions there as a child with his grand­moth­er. Feel­ing respon­si­ble for the death of his first love and his best friend in a fire that destroyed the region the sum­mer of his 15th birth­day, his return to Melvile forces him to stir up the past. As Paul dis­cov­ers the real rea­sons for Ruth and Thomas’s death, his stay in Melvile turns into a night­mare — the town of Melvile is not done with him.

Starseed

Produced by Special Touch Studios (France) – Co-produced by Aparte Film (Romania)

• Love­ness, a lit­tle albi­no girl, tries to sur­vive in a poor neigh­bor­hood in Zim­bab­we iron­i­cal­ly named Los Ange­les. One day, she has a strange encounter in the King Black for­est. Dan­ger is near, she risks her life if she stays on Earth.

Trip to Teulada

Produced by Isla Productions (France) – Co-produced by 2d3D Animations (France) & Mommotty (Italy)

• Assun­ta, an elder­ly woman, col­laps­es from exhaus­tion. She is res­cued by her neigh­bor Fati­ma, a Syr­i­an teenag­er. When the old woman regains con­scious­ness, she makes a strange dis­cov­ery: her apart­ment is now invad­ed by the peo­ple who lived in her child­hood vil­lage in Sar­dinia. She then relives the ups and downs of her youth, when NATO decid­ed to estab­lish in her small heav­en one of their biggest mil­i­tary maneu­ver­ing fields, forc­ing them to flee their home­land. ​Trip to Teulada” is a sort of home­com­ing for Assun­ta, but it also is the meet­ing of two immi­grants from dif­fer­ent back­grounds and dif­fer­ent times, who will help each oth­er go a long way.

Young Vincent

Produced by Submarine (Netherlands) – Co-produced by Tchack (France)

• The young Vin­cent has trou­ble fol­low­ing the rules and prefers wan­der­ing around through nature, alone or with his broth­er Theo. But all his par­ents see is a troublesome, dis­obe­di­ent child. So, they send him away to board­ing school. Lone­ly and far away from home, Vincent finds solace in his imag­i­na­tion, and he writes long, illus­trat­ed let­ters to Theo. Then, he befriends a popular boy named Paul, who also likes draw­ing. Paul is Vincent’s only friend, but their friend­ship is com­pli­cat­ed. Vin­cent finds a way to escape from board­ing school using his dreamworld and imag­i­na­tion. He runs all the way back home, where he finds Theo wait­ing for him.