The first major news to come out of this year’s Annecy International Animated Film Festival concerns a recently established animation division that joins forces with one of Spain’s top brass production facilities for what might be the first fully animated film to come from that division.
Variety recently reported that Ilion Animation Studios, one of Spain’s largest animation companies, will team up with Paramount Animation for its first fully animated 3D film (which is described as a ‘tentpole’ feature).
Even though this news just came out now, Ilion was actually in production on this movie since September 2014. According to Ilion president Perez Dolset, the company was invited as far back as early last year by Paramount Animation in Los Angeles in a bid against other animation studios to provide animation services.
Currently, Ilion employs over 350 artists on the production, with employment set to peak around 400.
Paramount Animation currently plans for the film to have a “year-end 2016” release window. The only other film set to come out from Paramount Animation that year will be the live-action/CG-hybrid Monster Trucks. While Paramount doesn’t plan to buy out Ilion (like Illumination did with France’s Mac Guff), Dolset did mention that the studio might work with Ilion on future projects.
The intersection of big name animation studios with growing international talents will be something of a running theme with Annecy, especially as Spain will present its largest number of works this year at the festival (with over 264 entries).
“Spanish animation talent is immense and its driving force: Sergio Pablos, Borja Montoro, Raul Garcia, Carlos Baena and many more. Spain has been a big talent pool for the big studios and now it looks like many of artists are coming back to Spain,” said Perez Dolset.
There are hopes at Ilion that its partnership with Paramount Animation will grant the opportunity to create an even larger hub for animation, digital technology, and art in Spain while tapping into the country’s rich pool of talent.
What do you think? Do you have any thoughts on what will be Paramount Animation’s first fully-animated feature film? Stay tuned for more coverage from this year’s Annecy Film Festival!
Edited by: Hannah Wilkes
