It's an incredible thing. Flow is such an unusual film, even by the standards of European animation -- the fact that this one took the Oscar is a really good sign for the future, on a lot of levels.
It's a really enjoyable film -- not sure if it's scheduled to appear in the UK yet (based on the info from its site), but it seems destined to travel a lot from here!
Hey, do yall know about Lackadaisy? It started as a webcomic in 2006 and now they're making a whole indie animated series out of it on YouTube! Might be worth checking out. Oh, and Alan Becker went totally hard on his latest Animator vs. Animation episode, if yall want to follow that train of thought. I can't wait to watch this film though! Seems like I've been seeing it everywhere recently. Thank you for this helpful article everyone!
Thanks very much! Flow is awesome -- hope you enjoy it as much as we did. As for Lackadaisy, we've been following it for a while! Always exciting to watch indie teams succeed. We've been especially intrigued by Glitch's TADC series and might have to go behind its scenes at some point. Anyway, really appreciate the tips!
Another advantage of European animation is that many productions use freelancers scattered around the EU working from home, and was doing so years before the pandemic made American studios figure out how to make it work. This keeps studio overheads low – often they only need space for the creative leads, admin, and maybe junior people who need more supervision – and allows talent and productions to mix more freely, since artists don't need to relocate for work. Plus, a lot of European countries offering either socialised or affordable health coverage means that artists can change jobs or weather lulls without existential fear. The lower overhead, lack of demanding shareholders, and autonomy of the artists, opens the door to more experimentation and audacity! I teach at The Animation Workshop and most of my students want to go work on American features, but I try to impress upon them that they've got a much better deal in Europe! I shall send them this article in future ...
These are great points -- thanks for adding this! Hollywood animation goes bigger in theaters, and plenty of European talent has made the shift and done good work over here (like Benjamin Renner on Migration), but the upsides to the European model are very real. Thanks for this, and hope your students enjoy the piece!
Hollywood animation also has vast, vast marketing budgets, sometimes rivalling that of the film itself – you can't get people into theatres without telling them to go!
i hope this isn’t weird…lol…but as i was reading your Stack i am overwhelmed with Love. You all bring a reasonable explanation for why i love animation and why it is truly Art. i read, become enchanted, and i feel affirmed. i honestly cannot imagine ever having uncovered even a small fraction of what you have given me in the short time i have been following AO. thank you and bless you! 🌈💚 You Always WoW me!
Not weird at all -- this comment made our day. Thank you so much for this! We're really happy that the newsletter is so enjoyable and inspiring for you. It means a lot.
Very interesting to read about the way European films are produced, and while Flow isn't my favorite film, I do appreciate what it accomplished, being the underdog that won the award.
Its also interesting when comparing European animated features as of late to anime features that aren't part of long franchises of course, I feel like anime was once way more creative and varied in terms of what was being produced at least on its prestige side, but these days almost every film in that segment is a high school drama - its lost a lot of the creative energy that was once there in the 1980s/1990s. Films like Masaaki Yuasa's Inu Oh feel like they were an absolute miracle to be made.
I guess in a nutshell I'm really liking what's coming out of Europe, especially from France, Summit of the Gods was really great and I'm going to make sure to watch a few other recent films like Mars express.
Europe has been killing it, for sure. And the anime comparison is a valid one. Most people in European animation take a ton of influence from anime and are pushing forward the old ideas of directors like Takahata, Miyazaki, Oshii, Yuasa and so on -- and it shows in films like Summit or Mars Express or Ernest & Celestine, etc.
The corporations that control the anime industry have made it hard for artists to thrive or even survive over the past 10 or 20 years, let alone to create stuff like Summit (or the anime that Summit borrows from). Certain people and projects still break through -- we really enjoyed The Imaginary, for example -- but it's a tough situation. It's reassuring that, even if the spark does go out of the anime industry, artists somewhere else will be able to carry it forward.
Fingers crossed that its distribution keeps expanding! Thankfully, given the Oscar, it should have an easy time finding partners to release it all over the world (unlike some European co-productions).
I have loved everything you all have done here at Animation Obsessive, I’ve learned SO much from your work here, entire worlds of animation have been opened up to me thanks to your writing. I’ve been a huge fan of anime and American animation my whole life but until reading AO I was basically completely unfamiliar with European animation. Thanks to you I’ve watched some of the best movies I’ve ever seen. I went from feeling like I’ve basically “seen everything” to having an untapped treasure trove before me. So thank you!!! Keep up the good work!!
I love the article. I love lots of the European films mentioned. Summit Of The Gods is a film I rewatch every so often. Haven't yet seen Flow (waiting to watch it with my wife), but from all I've seen, it's already one of my favourite films.
As an aspiring film-maker in Africa, would be nice for Africa to take a leaf from how the Europeans do things and co-produce a film across the continent
Thank you! Really hope you enjoy Flow as much as we did.
And the co-production model definitely needs to spread. In fact, we've seen promising movement in that direction lately from African countries! The Durban FilmMart in South Africa, for example, is a networking event designed for this kind of thing. Shofela Coker (who directed Moremi in Kizazi Moto) is showcasing an animated feature there in a few months that seems to be a co-production between Nigeria and South Africa. It's super exciting stuff and we hope there are more public details soon.
Yes, I've heard good things about Durban FilmMart. Hope to attend it soon along with the film festival from Durban. Will look out for news on Shofela Coker feature! Thanks for sharing and it is exciting!
What a great post, both about Flow and Retirement Plan! I want to see them if they’re ever available around me. The description of Retirement Plan was inspiring for my comics creating.
Another great article, thank you so much! I can't wait to see Flow when it hits theaters in Japan on March 14th:)
Thank you! Flow is so good (and so different). Hope you enjoy it as much as we did!
Man. First independent animated film to do so. That's awesome.
It's an incredible thing. Flow is such an unusual film, even by the standards of European animation -- the fact that this one took the Oscar is a really good sign for the future, on a lot of levels.
Absolutely.
Fantastic achievement, especially for an independent film, and thanks for sharing; great work on Animation Obsessive!
Thanks a ton! And for sure -- Flow has really made history here. Very curious to see where Zilbalodis goes after this.
Likewise, it is one to keep an eye on going forward.
thank you - looking forward to retirement plan - hoping will come to UK soon
It's a really enjoyable film -- not sure if it's scheduled to appear in the UK yet (based on the info from its site), but it seems destined to travel a lot from here!
Super mooi getekend en super professioneel gedaan Jij bent een topper (dikke duim omhoog ;-)
Hey, do yall know about Lackadaisy? It started as a webcomic in 2006 and now they're making a whole indie animated series out of it on YouTube! Might be worth checking out. Oh, and Alan Becker went totally hard on his latest Animator vs. Animation episode, if yall want to follow that train of thought. I can't wait to watch this film though! Seems like I've been seeing it everywhere recently. Thank you for this helpful article everyone!
Thanks very much! Flow is awesome -- hope you enjoy it as much as we did. As for Lackadaisy, we've been following it for a while! Always exciting to watch indie teams succeed. We've been especially intrigued by Glitch's TADC series and might have to go behind its scenes at some point. Anyway, really appreciate the tips!
Another advantage of European animation is that many productions use freelancers scattered around the EU working from home, and was doing so years before the pandemic made American studios figure out how to make it work. This keeps studio overheads low – often they only need space for the creative leads, admin, and maybe junior people who need more supervision – and allows talent and productions to mix more freely, since artists don't need to relocate for work. Plus, a lot of European countries offering either socialised or affordable health coverage means that artists can change jobs or weather lulls without existential fear. The lower overhead, lack of demanding shareholders, and autonomy of the artists, opens the door to more experimentation and audacity! I teach at The Animation Workshop and most of my students want to go work on American features, but I try to impress upon them that they've got a much better deal in Europe! I shall send them this article in future ...
These are great points -- thanks for adding this! Hollywood animation goes bigger in theaters, and plenty of European talent has made the shift and done good work over here (like Benjamin Renner on Migration), but the upsides to the European model are very real. Thanks for this, and hope your students enjoy the piece!
Hollywood animation also has vast, vast marketing budgets, sometimes rivalling that of the film itself – you can't get people into theatres without telling them to go!
i hope this isn’t weird…lol…but as i was reading your Stack i am overwhelmed with Love. You all bring a reasonable explanation for why i love animation and why it is truly Art. i read, become enchanted, and i feel affirmed. i honestly cannot imagine ever having uncovered even a small fraction of what you have given me in the short time i have been following AO. thank you and bless you! 🌈💚 You Always WoW me!
Not weird at all -- this comment made our day. Thank you so much for this! We're really happy that the newsletter is so enjoyable and inspiring for you. It means a lot.
Very interesting to read about the way European films are produced, and while Flow isn't my favorite film, I do appreciate what it accomplished, being the underdog that won the award.
Its also interesting when comparing European animated features as of late to anime features that aren't part of long franchises of course, I feel like anime was once way more creative and varied in terms of what was being produced at least on its prestige side, but these days almost every film in that segment is a high school drama - its lost a lot of the creative energy that was once there in the 1980s/1990s. Films like Masaaki Yuasa's Inu Oh feel like they were an absolute miracle to be made.
I guess in a nutshell I'm really liking what's coming out of Europe, especially from France, Summit of the Gods was really great and I'm going to make sure to watch a few other recent films like Mars express.
Europe has been killing it, for sure. And the anime comparison is a valid one. Most people in European animation take a ton of influence from anime and are pushing forward the old ideas of directors like Takahata, Miyazaki, Oshii, Yuasa and so on -- and it shows in films like Summit or Mars Express or Ernest & Celestine, etc.
The corporations that control the anime industry have made it hard for artists to thrive or even survive over the past 10 or 20 years, let alone to create stuff like Summit (or the anime that Summit borrows from). Certain people and projects still break through -- we really enjoyed The Imaginary, for example -- but it's a tough situation. It's reassuring that, even if the spark does go out of the anime industry, artists somewhere else will be able to carry it forward.
I want to watch this movie so bad 😞
Fingers crossed that its distribution keeps expanding! Thankfully, given the Oscar, it should have an easy time finding partners to release it all over the world (unlike some European co-productions).
I have loved everything you all have done here at Animation Obsessive, I’ve learned SO much from your work here, entire worlds of animation have been opened up to me thanks to your writing. I’ve been a huge fan of anime and American animation my whole life but until reading AO I was basically completely unfamiliar with European animation. Thanks to you I’ve watched some of the best movies I’ve ever seen. I went from feeling like I’ve basically “seen everything” to having an untapped treasure trove before me. So thank you!!! Keep up the good work!!
It means so much to hear this. THANK YOU! That's really, really kind.
I love the article. I love lots of the European films mentioned. Summit Of The Gods is a film I rewatch every so often. Haven't yet seen Flow (waiting to watch it with my wife), but from all I've seen, it's already one of my favourite films.
As an aspiring film-maker in Africa, would be nice for Africa to take a leaf from how the Europeans do things and co-produce a film across the continent
Thank you! Really hope you enjoy Flow as much as we did.
And the co-production model definitely needs to spread. In fact, we've seen promising movement in that direction lately from African countries! The Durban FilmMart in South Africa, for example, is a networking event designed for this kind of thing. Shofela Coker (who directed Moremi in Kizazi Moto) is showcasing an animated feature there in a few months that seems to be a co-production between Nigeria and South Africa. It's super exciting stuff and we hope there are more public details soon.
Yes, I've heard good things about Durban FilmMart. Hope to attend it soon along with the film festival from Durban. Will look out for news on Shofela Coker feature! Thanks for sharing and it is exciting!
What a great post, both about Flow and Retirement Plan! I want to see them if they’re ever available around me. The description of Retirement Plan was inspiring for my comics creating.
Thanks very much! Hope you get the chance to check them out -- and it's awesome to hear that Retirement Plan helped in your work!