Viviane Vanfleteren: Pioneering Belgian animation and overcoming funding challenges

But the Flemish producer, whose French colleague Didier Brunner (Les Armateurs, Folivari) once called “a pitbull of a producer” after working with her on his Oscar-nominated feature Les triplettes de Belleville, has crafted her own strategy to achieve this feat. 

International recognition first came for Vivi Film in 2009 with The Secret of Kells, Cartoon Saloon’s first feature directed by founders Tomm Moore and Nora Twomey. A co production between Ireland, France and Belgium in which Viviane Vanfleteren took part along with french producer Didier Brunner and Cartoon Saloon’s producer and co-founder Paul Young, The Secret of Kells quickly became a turning point in Cartoon Saloon’s history, gathering many awards and accolades internationally culminating with a Best Animated Feature nomination at the 82nd Academy Awards. 

It’s really the film that took me to the next level in animation. Today I’m better known abroad than in Belgium [laughs], but that doesn’t matter because I love what I do. After that, I did other co-productions but I soon realized that not having my own studio was causing some extra difficulties. In 2016, I founded Brussels-based Studio Souza with a colleague, and in 2021 we set up another studio in Ghent, Creature, which means that we now have more funding opportunities from the various regions. The challenge is always to optimize funding in Belgium.

Manoeuvering in the complex financial system of Belgian production funds holds almost no secrets to Vanfleteren, who’s implemented her studios in key cities to ensure access to all the funding opportunities available in Belgium, a country where audiovisual funding is divided between only two of the three regions, the Flemish North and the Walloon South, while also featuring a national tax-shelter system and regional funds.

For our last project, Valemon the Polar Bear Prince [a Norwegian co-production helmed by Mikkel B. Sandemose and produced by Maipo Film], we’re working for the first time in the three regions with the support of Wallimage, the Belgian Tax Shelter, the VAF, RTBF and Eurimages. I don’t think it’s often been the case that a producer has obtained all this support, and it helped us raise more than 6.5 million euros, which amounts to almost 45% of the overall production budget. The film production has been almost entirely handled in Belgium between Studio Souza, Creature and our Walloon partner Dreamwall, and I’m very excited to continue on other projects following this experience.

On Valemon, set to release for Christmas in Norway and early 2025 in the Benelux region, Vanfleteren managed to put more than 120 artists at work in Belgium, from backgrounds, lay-out, animation to clean-up and compositing. 

I often feel like an architect around my financial plans and budgets, but it’s a good way to maximize the effectiveness of the production. I’ve always loved to put my head on the line and to take risks, but calculated ones. It also has to do with surrounding yourself with a trustworthy team, which I’m happy to say I’ve managed over the last few years. Of course there will always be problems, but there are significantly less when you can talk directly with your partner studios and have an open dialogue over budget issues. Being able to move tasks smoothly from one studio to another helped a lot with both production and cash flow, which is key in this line of work. Our partner Triodos Bank was also a big support in providing credit and loans that helped ease the delay provided by our public funds-relying way of working. Slowly but surely, I think we are able to rise from craftsmanship to an industry-like level of production. And I think that’s great for Belgian animation.

Valemon is Vivi Film’s second collaboration with a Norwegian producer, after the successful Mikrofilm co-production of Titina directed by Kasja Næss, which hit European cinemas last year. This experience, along with Valemon, helped Vivi Film in reaching new production capacities and now allows Vanfleteren to envision a bigger future for Belgian animation. And Vivi Film isn’t the only Belgian production studio to try diversifying their trade and match international standards. 

Benelux productions have the potential to weigh more in the European animation industry, we just have to put our strengths together and increase awareness of our institutions, who sometimes still believe animation is for children only. I’ll say it every day: animation is a medium for telling stories, just like live action cinema.

Yet in Belgium, much remains to be done. 

I’m still struggling to get financial support from both French and Flemish communities on a very 100% Belgian project I’m carrying [The Legend of Lune, which was presented at Cartoon Movie 2023], because film funds cannot be fully combined to achieve a reasonable animation budget. Thus it forces me to choose between funding committees, while still being unable to attain the production level required. It may well work for live-action, but it isn’t suited for animation. Animation has a richness that allows you to create a whole world on screen, but it also means that artists are working days and months on such projects, which is impossible to finance here if you don’t get enough state support in Belgium.

One of the things I love most about my job is being able to meet so many artists from all over the world who come here to work in our studios. Developing this network, keeping our local talents and bringing more is something that institutions should support more. We’re currently looking for senior Blender artists, but they’re still hard to find in Belgium, or even Europe. So we decided to build a mix between recruitment and education for our upcoming projects. Inclusion, diversity and having a multicultural environment is a big part of what makes our teams, and I’m happy we can continue to implement that in every aspect of our workflows.

Vivi Film is currently working on several series and developing their own IPs and projects. Upside Down River [in co-production with France’s Dandelooo and Portugal’s Sparkle Animation] is in its final episode, and they will soon be commencing production on Andarta Pictures’ Ewilan’s Quest, an 8*26’ project they have been working on for a long time and for which they are seeking senior animators. Simultaneously, they are in the process of developing a new 3D pipeline at Studio Souza and Creature for an upcoming co-production on Ploey 2, marking a new step for them as they have primarily worked on 2D arthouse projects until now.

You can find out more about Vivi Film and its upcoming projects on https://www.vivifilm.be/