A REPORT ON POLISH ANIMATED FILM MARKET
At the end of October, the works on the report on Polish animated film sector and VFX will end. The main objective of the enterprise is to evaluate the economic, technological and developmental potential of the market. The report is being prepared by the experts from the ECORYS Poland company on behalf of Film Commission Poland, with the support of Polish Animation Producers Association.
Animated films constitute an extremely profitable part of the international film industry, foreign animated films are triumphant at thePolish box-office, while Polish productions are successful mainly... abroad. Though the potential of Polish animated film industry is noticeable, the current market situation makes it difficult to use it. The research on the present situation in the Polish animated film industry, commissioned by Film Commission Poland and conducted by the Polish division of the international consulting company ECORYS, is to help with this. The project is financially supported by Polish Film Institute, and Polish Animation Producers Association is the enterprise's partner.
In 1989, as a result of the political transformation, Polish animated film entered a phase of crisis. State-owned studios, after a few years of hand-to-mouth existence, were progressively closed, whereas private studios, wanting to stay on the market, had to produce mainly the so-called applied animation. One can treat the Academy Award nomination for "The Cathedral" by Tomasz Bagiński in the category the best short animated film in 2002 as the break-through moment for the industry. Four years later, the picture "Peter & the Wolf" by Suzy Templeton won the Academy Award; it was one of the greatest co-productions in the history of Polish animated film (Se-Ma-For from Lodz and BreakThru Films from the United Kingdom), which is a good example of the industry's growth. However, it seems that the awareness of the condition of Polish animated film and of the potential of this part of the creative sector is still relatively low. Not much is said about what is being produced, how much it costs and what profits it can bring both at home and abroad. For a long time, animated film and special effects have been treated in the USA and in the Western Europe as a crucial part of the audiovisual industry, which can generate huge profits within the frames of widely understood creative industries. Though new companies producing animated films are established in Poland, the animation itself is not popularised, and the enormous potential it has, also promotional one, remains untapped.
How does the system for supporting animated film really look like today? What are the sources of financing the animated film production? What should they be? Will animated films continue to be made primarily in small studios, which earn their living by making advertisements, special effects and applied animation? And finally - what results from the noticeable symptoms of the industry growth?
The main objective of the enterprise is to evaluate the economic, technological and developmental potential of Polish animated film sector and VFX. On the basis of the research, a report will be written, which will be the material promoting the aforementioned sector, depicting its growth potential and widely understood profits for other creative industries, resulting from the development of the animated film industry in Poland. Also, the needs and development barriers of the industry will be recognised, and recommendations concerning support of the sector will be elaborated.
Source: Film Commission Poland