EU aims to help animated films take on US giants

Can Shaun the Sheep take on Kung Fu Panda? 

Europe's mostly low-key animated film industry needs a helping hand in taking on US goliaths like Pixar and DreamWorks -- and EU regulators say they are ready to join battle.

"We would like to concentrate on the European animation sector," EU Commissioner Guenther Oettinger told journalists Sunday on the sidelines of the world's oldest film festival in Venice.

"We will launch a dialogue with the major European animation studios to identify specific challenges and opportunities and agree on a joint action plan by the middle of 2017," the Digital Economy commissioner said.

While animation films are the audiovisual category with the largest European circulation, European animation films, such as Britain's 2015 "Shaun the Sheep Movie", struggle to compete with US productions.

Between 2010 and 2014, not one European production made it to the top 30 list of animation films in Europe by admission, overshadowed by hits such as "Frozen" (2013) and "Ice Age: Continental Drift" (2012).

US animated movies routinely become global blockbuster franchises, including the "Kung Fu Panda," "Toy Story" and "Shrek" films, whereas in Europe they tend to be independent art-house productions.

Oettinger admitted "funding for culture is not easy to ensure because our member states have difficulties with their budgets" and an unspecified number want to slash 4.5 million euros ($5 million) off the Creative Europe programme's 2017 budget.

"This is not acceptable. Today it is more important than ever to support culture, to support cinema, to promote our European values," he said, adding that he was "quite optimistic" he could bring reluctant states around.

The 2017 tranche of the seven-year budget (2014 to 2020) currently stands at 100 million euros, and there are some members states who would even like that raised by up to 10 million euros.

Proposals Oettinger will present before the end of this month are set to outline ways to bring the European Union's copyright laws up to date and "help our European film industry thrive in the digital single market".

A new "online depository" to allow easy access to and the use of existing subtitling and dubbing by operators in the EU would "be launched by the end of this year," he said, in a bid to help films cross national borders.

"I will also promote the development of licensing hubs, online tools which allow the digital distribution of European works also in countries where they have not been released in cinemas or where there is no national distributor," he said.

Increasing numbers of animated films are running in and out of competition at the world's top film festivals, with special screenings for children added at this year's Venice of the 2016 US hit "The Secret Life of Pets".