During the Annecy Film Festival/MIFA 2017, 12 CineRegio member funds met to discuss the animation business in Europe with a particular focus on the future financing eco-system of animation and how to retain the talent in Europe.
“The regional film fund members of the animation group agreed that a key aspect & challenge is the lack of animators with technical skills (i.e. technical creation, supervision, e ects, etc.). It is a shared goal among our members that animators should stay in Europe. Currently they seem to have better job opportunities outside Europe – also due to the massive public funding combined with no state aid rules for film and games in countries such as Canada”, says Charlotte Appelgren and continues: “On the other hand there seems to be an overproduction in Europe of artistic graduates with no technical/digital skills”.

Another thing which members experience is that there is huge gap between the skills new graduates have and the needs/expectations of the studios/sector.
At the Annecy meeting it was agreed there is a need for a study on the Animation business in Europe from the point of view of regional film funds that would have political relevance for the European regions. “It is the hope that the report will inspire us to form the best possible tools and funding programmes for the animation business in our territories”, says Charlotte Appelgren.