Martin Vandas from the Czech Republic and Juraj Krasnohorsky from Slovakia, two among the most productive producers of animated films from the CEE region, have teamed up with the former executive director of the BAB Children's Festival in Bratislava, Lucia Dubravay Trautenberger, to create Bear With Me Distribution, or BWMD for short.
The boutique sales agent and festival distributor BWMD will focus mainly on animated short films for children. "The aim is to provide comprehensive support for authors and artistic short films aimed at a children's audience. This includes developing suitable festival strategies and selling films to the international market, TV channels, VOD platforms and theatrical distributors in selected countries," says the company's Head of Sales&Acquisitions, Lucia Dubravay Trautenberger.
Theatrical distribution of curated short film programs for children is generating significant box office results in some countries where distributors have consistently built a culture of such programs for children and schools, such as Cinema Public Films or Gebeka in France, to name but a few. BWMD is also looking into the regional distribution of children's programs according to this model in the CEE region, thus closing the circle of festival distribution, international sales and theatrical distribution for the films selected in the BWMD catalogue.
Producers Martin Vandas from MAUR Film in Prague and Juraj Krasnohorsky from Artichoke in Bratislava will act as advisors for the selection and festival strategies and contribute their experience in the field of animation. Vandas is known for titles such as the Oscar-contending short film Daughter by Daria Kashcheeva or The Crossing by Florence Miailhe and the recently released Hello Summer by Martin Smatana and Veronika Zacharová. Krasnohorsky's titles include the EFA and Annies-nominated feature White Plastic Sky, recently released in France under the title Sky Dome 2023. Together they worked on titles such as Superbia by Luca Tóth or this year's Annecy competition short films I Died in Irpin by Anastasiia Falileieva and Hurikan by Jan Saska, while their new stop-motion feature film for children Of Unwanted Things and People is in post-production.
"We have seen a gap in the market when it comes to servicing animation short films for the youngest audiences. Some renowned companies are doing great work on festival short films for adults or more experimental films. We want to position ourselves as high-profile sales agent for children's films," says Juraj Krasnohorsky, who is also head of studies at the CEE Animation Workshop.
"Our producer friends from France, Portugal to Estonia or Singapore have responded very positively to our initiative and have entrusted us with their children's short films, which they didn't really know how to take care of before," says Martin Vandas.
You can meet Bear With Me Distribution at MIFA in Annecy as part of the CEE Animation umbrella under the Creative Europe MEDIA Stand.
