Portuguese producers and studios for three days at Cartoon Forum in Toulouse presented their projects in search of partnerships that would allow them to receive the necessary funding for their implementation.

“Portuguese projects are always of high quality and creativity. We always bring something new to the market. We are struggling with production difficulties, and these difficulties are mainly due to a small amount of funding, ”said President of the Institute of Film and Audiovisual (ICA) Luis Chabi Vaz.

Portugal featured prominently this week at Cartoon Forum, Europe’s largest animated series show for television and platforms.where creators and producers come every year to be able to increase the production budget, which allows them to offer copyright content even to children and adults.

After a long hiatus between the late 1990s and early 2000s, Portuguese animation has returned to the spotlight in Europe, but like other European countries, it is struggling with funding difficulties.

The cost of producing an animated series per season can range from one to two million euros, depending on the format. values ​​that are much lower than government aid in Portugal.

From the side of the MCA, we do what we consider to be an important way to develop and support projectsbut this step, which is very significant for us in terms of the production budget of these projects, is far from meeting our needs, ”admitted Luis Chabi Vaz.

In Portugal, the animation support fund is 600 thousand euros per year., the project cannot receive more than 300,000 euros, and some hope is pinned on the new audiovisual directive.

Until now, throughout Europe, animation has been supported through public television channels. In Portugal, RTP has an annual fund of 100 thousand euros to subsidize animated content, which, according to the state station itself, is “small” considering production costs.

A few years ago, we set a minimum amount of € 100,000 per year to support Portuguese animation, which is more focused on animated series, TV shows and feature films. We understand that when it comes to animation, this amount is negligible, but this is the value that is possible for us. We have met this commitment and even exceeded that amount, ”said Andrea Basilio, Content Development Manager at RTP.

Even diminished, this support has already helped to produce such TV series as Lengalonga, 7 Kaishas, ​​Diario de Alisa, Krias, Mister Kaishas. Passenger ”,“ Duarte, a work of art ”,“ Hello, how are you? ”And even“ Saaskatoons ”, which was presented at the Cartoon Forum 2021 and now seeks to complement this support from the RTP.

With a bigger budget, Neighbor TVE has been at the Cartoon Forum looking for series with a more pedagogical element to fill their networks in the coming years, and the Portuguese projects featured in this edition of the show have not gone unnoticed.

I will not reveal which projects, but I am sure that some of them will be in our annual announcement.– which we always do at the beginning of the year and where we find out which series we are going to help in production, ”said Iago Fandinho Lusa, Deputy Director of Children’s Content at TVE.

Often the animated series is funded by several European TV channels, such as “Diário de Alice” by the Portuguese studio Sardinha em Lata, which is produced by TVE and RTP.

Iago Fandinho Lusa would like the number of joint projects of the two countries to increase: “Despite the fact that they are neighbors, it seems that Portugal and Spain have turned their backs. We look outside, not at each other, but there are more and more between Spanish and Portuguese manufacturers and we maintain a good relationship with RTP. Here we see how close we are and together we have more strength to attack this market. “

Another opportunity for the development of the sector in Portugal is the attraction of animated films to the territory of the country, where the Portuguese authorities want to show that there are all conditions for the development of high-quality projects.

“Portugal markets itself through our talents, through what our studios and our production companies can do and produce, with a very competitive incentive to recover up to 30% of the investment,” said Manuel, director of the Portuguese Cinematography Commission. Claro.