When mentioning animated production for young adults, many would automatically fill in: Cartoon Network, whose brand has dominated the market for over two decades. But there’s more to it than just series produced by mammoth American studios. That is why the Zlin Film Festival organises a talk show called “Young Adult Animation or is it time for a European adventure?”
Nearly a month before the kick-off of the 64th edition (30 May-5 June), the Zlín Film Festival wants you to know about interesting events organised for industry professionals. Among them is a talk show about young adult animation. More and more European producers are coming up with remarkable original films and series, although they often represent only a small section in the catalogues of distributors and festivals. “What is the challenge of creating animated content for teenage audiences in the digital era? How to reach out to the target audience when competing with drama series and big brands? And what is the approach of film festivals? Such topics will be discussed from the perspective of animators, producers, dramaturgs and curators“ says Jana Čižkovská, curator of this section.
Last year the Zlín Film Festival launched a new section called ‘European Web Series for Teenagers’. The pilot episode brought a selection of Scandinavian web series telling attractive stories for young audiences, e.g. DOME 16 (Norway), EAGLES (Sweden), NORDLAND ´99 (Denmark) or LIKE ME (Norway). The festival this year carried on discovering remarkable content, as will be proven in the screenings of BEAST (Norway), ONE OF THE BOYS (Denmark – photo) or WOULD YOU RATHER…? (France), alongside professional comments and discussions on the given topics.