Dream Well Studio (Latvia), Sacrebleu Productions (France) and Take Five (Belgium) jointly won Cartoon Movie’s Producer of the Year award today for their work on Oscar-winning animated feature film Flow (pictured).

Pitched at Cartoon Movie 2022 and directed by Gints Zilbalodis, the co-production was also recognized with award wins at Annecy, the European Film Awards and the Golden Globes this year for its gorgeous animation and emotional story about a solitary cat who finds refuge on a boat with several other animals during a flood.  

Sales Agent of the Year went to Paris-based sales and co-production company Kinology, which distributes animated kids films including TAT Productions’ CG-animated Argonuts; Sirocco and the Kingdom of the Winds from Dream Well, Sacrebleu, Take Five and Ciel de Paris Productions; and TAT’s upcoming film Pets on a Train. 

Cartoon Movie singled out Spanish screenwriter/director María Trénor as 2025’s Director of the Year. She won for her 2D-animated YA/adult film Rock Bottom, a Cartoon Forum 2022 selection. It’s a love story between young musicians, inspired by the life and music of English artist Robert Wyatt. 

This year’s Cartoon Movie event, which ends today, presented 55 film pitches. Over the course of its 26-year history, 487 Cartoon Movie films have gone on to raise US$3.4 billion in financing. 

There were 838 attendees at the event from 40 countries, 251 of whom were buyers. The pitch attended by the most buyers was Lou and the Glacier’s Secret from Gao Shan Pictures (France), Cine 3D (Switzerland) and Need Productions’ (Belgium). The 80-minute family film is about a 12-year-old goat who heads into the snowy mountains to find her mother, and ends up discovering a mysterious creature who reveals the secrets of the spirit world.