Cartoon Forum is saying “Ciao!” to Italy this year, spotlighting the Mediterranean nation that local producers say has a bright future in animation. From a production and business standpoint, Italy offers a strong tax credit for international productions, covering up to 40% of eligible production costs on series and films, up to a maximum of US$22 million per year. 

Five Italian series were selected to pitch at Cartoon Forum this year, putting the country in a tie for third with Germany, behind France with 36 and Ireland with eight 

Italy was selected for the 2024 spotlight because it’s home to more than 80 active animation companies working on original projects, international co-productions and service contracts. Then there’s the historical angle—the very first Cartoon Forum was held 35 years ago at the Villa Medici. This year, there’s a delegation of roughly 100 Italians at the event, says CARTOON general director Annick Maes. 

The co-production draw

After the UK exited from the European Union, Italy became one of the most important European markets, explains Benoît Di Sabatino, CEO of Banijay Kids & Family. “It’s France, and it’s Italy,” he says. He saw Italy’s potential two years ago, when he pushed for Banijay Kids & Family to acquire Italian studio Movimenti (Topo Gigio, Wolf). 

At the time, he made a promise to RAI Kids executive director Luca Milano that he would push Movementi to become a producer of its own high-quality projects, as well as a reputable service studio. And now, the company has been nominated for Best Producer of the Year at this year’s Cartoon Tributes awards (the winners will be announced Thursday)—a testament to the talent at the studio and in the country, according to Di Sabatino. “Italy can compete with the best producers in the world,” he says. 

Julien Borde, president of Mediawan Kids & Family (which is pitching three series from its various studios this week), regards Italy just as highly. He oversees Palomar Animation, which Mediawan bought in 2019, and explains that the Italian studio is valued for both its talent and its ability to unlock tax credits in co-pros with Mediawan’s other subsidiaries. 

Providing some timely examples, Borde says that Palomar has just put a new series into development with Mediawan’s Netherlands-based studio Submarine Animation. Also in the works is a production of The 3 Musketeers with Method Animation for RAI, ZDF and France TV that’s scheduled to premiere at MIPCOM, as well as an animated feature film called Twisted (which was presented at Cartoon Movie this year) that’s now in the pre-financing stage. Palomar is looking to get the project fully funded at MIA in Rome next month, just ahead of MIPCOM. 

“[With Palomar,] we can maximize co-productions within the group,” says Borde. “It’s a way to respond to the market.” In terms of the most important markets in Europe, Borde echoes Di Sabatino’s geographical perspective: “After France and Germany, it’s Italy.” 

Local advantages and national support

Regional funds and a well-trained local talent pool are also strengthening the domestic industry, says Federico Turani, IBRIDO Studio’s producer of Matita HB. (IBRIDO is presenting the 26 x 11-minute series on Thursday at 12:00 p.m. CEST in the Blue Room.) In this 2D-animated series, a 10-year-old girl reimagines her boring life as a series of epic adventures, turning geography research into sailing on a galleon across the sea of boredom, for example. 

“The Piedmont region—our region—has a fund of up to US$445,000 for TV series and feature films,” says Turani. “And we also have Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Turin, which is one of the most important animation schools in Italy, so you can imagine the pool of talent that lives [here].” 

The core of the country’s animation business is in TV, and Italy has been the birthplace of several kids series that have reached a global audience, including Atlantyca’s Geronimo Stilton and Rainbow’s Winx Club—which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. 

RAI (which co-developed Winx Club all those years ago) is the main source of funding for Italian animated series. And Maria Carolina Terzi, president of Cartoon Italia, praised the pubcaster during a speech at Cartoon Forum’s opening ceremony. “If animation is alive in Italy, it’s thanks to RAI,” she said. 

In a speech during Cartoon Forum’s opening ceremony, Maria Carolina Terzi, president of Cartoon Italia, noted that Italy has around 6,000 operators in its animation sector. Photo courtesy of Ryan Tuchow.

RAI and the tax credit are the two main pillars of the country’s industry, Milano tells Kidscreen. It’s not an easy time for pubcasters, though, even one that spends about US$33 million per year on kids content (not including its internal productions). This figure keeps getting stretched because of ballooning budgets and production costs, and then there’s the challenge of competing with YouTube. 

RAI is tackling that digital problem with its RaiPlay streamer, a platform that now has 25 million users and is increasingly important to the pubcaster, says Milano.  

In the last few decades, Italy has gone from being a country that only made storyboards at home, to one that’s fully producing content domestically and has scored a few international hits.

Modern and relevant

RAI is doing what it can for kids content, offers Milano, adding that one of the broadcaster’s key goals is speaking honestly to this audience and giving them content that’s relevant to them. This means some internal productions will tackle mature topics such as toxic love, laws and how relationships between boys and girls are evolving. 

Along these lines, the pubcaster signed a letter of interest for VISMANIMATION’s mental health-focused concept MindTOONness (pictured at top) —which the studio is presenting at Cartoon Forum today at 12:30 p.m. CEST in the Purple Room. Based on a seven-book series for kids ages four to eight that was written by Italian psychologist Luca Mazzucchelli, this 2D-animated adaptation is a collection of 10 x 25-minute specials in which animals model different stages of a child’s psychological development, including learning to let go of items they care about and how positivity can shape their reality. 

This is VISMANIMATION founder Lucia Vismara’s first time at the event, but she’s not that worried about presenting because the project’s timely focus on kids’ mental health gives it an edge in the market and should help it stand out from other pitches. 

At Cartoon Forum, RAI is taking part in the EBU Co-Development Initiative that will see 15 pubcasters choose one or two projects to collectively finance through development. This is just one example of something RAI is pushing for and something that Milano predicts the industry is going to see a lot more of—pubcasters working together.

In general, Milano wants the industry to know that RAI is open to new partners and looking to create and acquire kids content. “We do our part to grow the European industry and help kids and families,” he says. 

And Cartoon Italia’s Terzi playfully summed up her country’s potential like this during the event’s opening ceremony: “Remember the words of Madonna: Italians do it better.”