Bordeaux, FRANCE -- CARTOON MOVIE has announced the winners of the 2019 Cartoon Tributes, which are awarded for outstanding contribution to the development of European animation over the last year.

Divided into three categories: Director, Distributor and Producer of the Year This year Cartoon Tributes bring together the best of the latest European animated features as well as some of the continent’s most active companies within the industry. The winners were selected by more than 900 participants at Cartoon Movie, the European pitching and co-production forum for animated features held in Bordeaux March 5-7.

Created in 2001, the aim of the Cartoon Movie Tributes is to reward companies or personalities that have had a positive influence on the animation feature film industry.

This year winners are:

Amsterdam’s based Submarine is a production studio that develops and produces feature films, documentaries, animation and transmedia. The company is one of the most active at European level and is involved in four projects presented at Cartoon Movie: In the Forest, Where is Anne Frank?, My Grandfather Used To Say He Saw Demons, and Buñuel in The Labyrinth of The Turtles.

2. Director of The Year: SALVADOR SIMO for Bunuel In The Labyrinth of the Turtles (Spain/The Netherlands)

Salvador Simó is a director and scriptwriter who has worked in different animation studios in Los Angeles, London, Barcelona, and Asia. In 2016 he moves back to Spain to write and direct his debut Buñuel in The Labyrinth of The Turtles, a film based on the 1932’s Land Without Bread, a controversial documentary at its time and now reckoned as one of the greatest films of Luis Buñuel. The film -which will be released in Spain (April 26) and France (June, 2019)- is a production of Sygnatia in co-production with Submarine (the Netherlands).

3. Distributor of The Year: SOLA MEDIA (Germany)

Founded in Stuttgart in 2004, Sola Media is a world sales agent specializing in high-quality children’s films and family entertainment with a strong focus on animation feature films for the big screen. Recent animation features include: Rabbit School, Coconut the Little Dragon, Captain Morten and the Spider Queen, Up & Away, Manou the Swift & Latte and the Magic Waterstone.

Since 1999, over 333 films pitched at Cartoon Movie, with a total budget of 2.2 billion Euros, have secured their financing and have been released thanks to this annual forum aimed at strengthening the production and distribution of animated feature films in Europe.

CARTOON MOVIE is organized by CARTOON with the support of Creative Europe - MEDIA, CNC (Centre National du Cinéma et de l’Image Animée), Nouvelle-Aquitaine Region, Bordeaux Metropole, INVEST Nouvelle-Aquitaine, the City of Bordeaux and le Pôle Image Magelis.

Source: CARTOON – European Association of Animation Film