In 2017, one Catalan animated function hit cinema theaters. Eight years later, after a 2023 Oscar nomination for “Robot Dreams,” produced by Barcelona’s Arcadia Movement Photos, in 2025 six Catalan animated options noticed a theatrical launch. This 12 months, Catalonia has 11 titles chosen for Annecy, between its pageant and MIFA market, led by Contrechamp contender “Winnipeg, Seeds of Hope.”
At the least a dozen upcoming Catalan animation titles bid honest for worldwide gross sales. These embody a modern-day makeover of certainly one of Catalonia’s largest IPs, 1990’s TV sequence “The Triplets,” plus “Tad and the Magic Lamp,” the fourth “Tad the Lost Explorer” toon pic iteration, a possible blockbuster, and “Pink Punk Delta,” a function which harnesses a lot of the aesthetic revolution in animation strategies in a story of younger feminist insurrection.
“Catalan animation is no longer a promise anymore. It’s a consolidated industry,” says producer David Matamoros at Mr Miyagi Movies (“Agent 203,” “Juul”).
Final 12 months at Annecy, Selection wrote that Catalonia was “building a global animation powerhouse,” changing into “one of Europe most exciting hubs for animation.” The foundations now laid, one 12 months later, extra of the powerhouse is seen.
10 takes on Catalonia’s presence at France’s 2026 Annecy Intl. Animation Movie Pageant, operating June 21-27:
Catalonia’s Banner Title: ‘The Triplets’
The newest surge is available in a drive into IP. One banner working example: a rebooted “The Triplets,” set for launch on Catalan state TV community 3Cat in December 2026, produced by Barcelona’s Peekaboo Animation and B Animation. As ever, the problem is to ship one thing contemporary whereas retaining the essence of the vastly standard authentic, launched over 1995-2004. The characters, three ebullient triplets and a Bored Witch, stay, says producer Iván Agenjo, although the sisters are “a little bit older and complex.” Additionally, episode size is halved to 11 minutes, and graphic design lighter and airier, whereas the sequence “embraces girls empowerment diversity and inclusion.”
However Catalonia Exhibits Its Animation Depth and Breadth at Annecy
‘Winnipeg, Seeds of Hope’
Catalan Movies
Catalan Annecy titles run, nevertheless, a broad gamut of authentic titles starting from arthouse 2D historic drama “Winnipeg, Seeds of Hope,” directed by Beñat Beitia Urresti and Elio Quiroga and chosen for Contrechamp, to “Monster Mia,” a spooky high-school family-targeting comedy. Additionally within the combine is MIFA function movie pitch “The Factory Beyond the Hill,” a painterly Kafkian tackle rampant capitalism, to a number of shorts comparable to “Because Today Is Saturday,” a psychological portrait of a put-upon mom, and “Hunger,” taking part in Midnight Shorts, a black-and-white post-apocalypse psychological horror-thriller. Methods range from the artisanal to excessive know-how or a mixture of each as animation represents one of many default choices for a brand new era of creators.
The Revolution: IP
With its authentic promoting to 158 territories, “The Triplets” performs to 1 market improvement. A CNC/Unifrance French TV export report printed final September famous members’ animation gross sales plunged in 2024, withered by a pointy downturn in U.S. buys, pubcaster cuts in youth applications and streamers’ abandonment of animation in favor of leisure and sports activities. In such a risk-averse setting, robust IP was wanted to drive gross sales, the report concluded. “Kids content with massive scalability,” is among the export phenomena which is beginning to work, PlumResearch’s Jonathan Broughton noticed in a keynote presentation final month at Conecta Fiction. “The Triplets” offered to 158 territories, making it “one of the few Spanish IPs that is able to raise licensing deals before airing,” observes Agenjo. Peekaboo is at present closing its first three licensing offers, two for Spain and one a multi-territory accord. The sequence targets 5-8s, however can even enchantment to nostalgic moms who grew up watching the present, he provides.
Catalan Animated Function Surge
Few TV properties in Catalonia or certainly most components of Europe, nevertheless, have the potential IP punch of “The Triplets.” So Catalonia’s new IP surge turns largely on upcoming hit sequence function movie spin-offs – “Jasmine & Jumbo: The Movie,” “Superthings,” “Agent 203” – and “Tad Jones and the Magic Lamp,” whose film saga to this point, from its first three motion pictures, has grossed $118 million worldwide. “The TV series ecosystem has changed a lot in recent years, [focusing ever more] on series based on toylines or which are highly commercial,” says Ivan Díaz, head of worldwide at Filmax, which has co-produced and sells “Superthings Rivals of Kaboom: Kazoom Power,” impressed by the toy franchise created by Catalonia’s Magic Field Toys. “If you have a quality production, it’s easier to have immediate international returns with animated features,” he provides.
Catalonia’s Animation Construct: Extra Drivers
IP doesn’t clarify alone the construct of Catalonia’s animation sector, nevertheless: Simply between 2018 and 2023, in line with the 2024 Libro Blanco of the Spanish animation business, the variety of animation corporations in Catalonia grew 27% to 717. Catalonia’s six options launched in 2025 is the same as the annual common for the entire of Spain over 2020-22, when 18 animated options have been produced, in line with animation federation Diboos. Partially, that have to be put all the way down to a push phenomenon of ever extra expertise coming onto the market. “A lot of young people are going into animation,” says Matamoros. “Catalonia has very decent art, animation and VFX schools. Spain’s video games industry has set up in Barcelona. There’s a huge talented animation community, a talent market of graphic artists, writers and storytellers,” he provides. “There is a combination of circumstances: the support we provide to the sector, the talent, the industrial base of the same,” notes Francisco Vargas, head of the audiovisual space on the Catalan authorities’s ICEC movie fund. “There’s a young generation of creatives, including producers, who are bold enough to try on anything, fiction, documentaries or animation.”
Public Assist: One Key
In 2025, Spain produced extra function movies than another nation in Europe: 423, almost twice France’s output (228), in line with a Cannes Marché du Movie Focus report. This development will be attributed to the help schemes put in place at each nationwide and regional stage,” the report stated. “Nearly everyone in the industry agrees: without consistent public investment, Catalan animation would not be where it is today,” Selection wrote in 2025. It’s no coincidence that Catalan animation begins to develop as its authorities created in 2017 a particular funding line for animation, or that animation has skyrocketed in 2025, when Catalonia’s Division of Tradition, by way of the ICEC, devoted almost €60 million ($70 million) to the audiovisual sector, a report determine, when animation funding rose from €1.45 million ($1.7 million) in 2017 to over €5 million ($5.8 million) final 12 months. Funding additionally acknowledges the singularity of animation, its longer manufacturing timeline and multi-territory financing, Vargas notes.
Co-Manufacturing
All the Catalan productions screening at Annecy are co-productions, both with different components of Spain (“The Hunger”) or Chile and Argentina (“Winnipeg, Seeds of Hope”) or Austria and Germany (“Monster Mía”) or Portugal and France (“Because Today Is Saturday”). Animation is by default worldwide, “The Triplets” producer Agenjo has stated. By 2023, 70% of Spain’s animation revenues came from exports. Based on Vargas, animation producers can look to not solely a particular animation funding line in Catalonia but in addition improvement funding – not the case throughout Spain – and a minority manufacturing fund that has been certainly one of Catalonia’s largest success tales.
One other Boon for Animated Artwork Movies: Tax Breaks
‘Pink Punk Delta’
Ibermedia Subsequent
Add to this tax credit of 25%-30% requiring a €1 million ($1.16 million) spend in Spain, and comparable fiscal amenities in co-producer companion corporations that are changing conventional TV finance, Matamoros notes. Tax breaks additionally facilitate co-production in animation, making it doable to separate structure in a single nation, compositing in one other, he provides. It’s now possible to supply animated motion pictures at €2 million-€4 million ($2.3 million-$4.6 million) made by auteurs with a way of creative freedom, he says. That certainly seems to be to be one fertile future for Catalan animation. One instance: Ibermedia Subsequent 2.0 mission “Pink Punk Delta,” a Catalonia-Slovakia-Chile-Colombia co-production offered at Annecy’s MIFA Function Movie Pitch final 12 months, a movie with a 2D end however utilizing shaders to offer texture, experiments with mo-cap and recourse to 3D to base the character fashions in Blender.
The YouTube Connection
One cause which TV sequence promote much less is as a result of youngsters devour ever extra titles on YouTube, Díaz notes. However YouTube can even function a supply of inspiration. Sola Media launched at Cannes “Gus the Guide Dog,” about an oh-so cute stray which desires to maneuver into service, primarily based on Bruno Simões’ 2018 quick “Pip,” which scored over 540 million views on YouTube. Simões himself is at Annecy with two shorts, “Impossible!” and as a producer on “Because Today Is Saturday.” With that form of observe report, patrons will need to know extra.
The Future
“The challenge between 2018 and 2023 was to build a critical mass of studios and talent,” says Matamoros. By 2026, “the focus right now has shifted towards scaling internationally competitive projects and positioning Catalonia alongside emerging animation hubs such as Belgium, Ireland and even the Canary Islands,” he provides. “Catalonia’s animation sector is already leading in Europe in many ways,” says Vargas, citing its annual Animar-BCN Animation Days assume tank. And animation is definitely a sector with a future, he argues. “It’s intense in its international reach. It practices innovation, is accustomed to delocation and its labor force highly qualified in technology.” That, in unsure occasions, is a big attraction.
