‘Mutant Mayhem’s’ Jeff Rowe, Nora Twomey, Nickelodeon’s Latifa Ouaou to Debate Animation’s New Creativity at Variety Annecy Panel

variety.com:

Marta Balaga Variety will host a panel at the Annecy Animation Festival, Breaking the Borders of Animation, focusing on one of the key – and most exciting –  talking points in the medium: How animation is currently being revolutionized and reimagined by new waves of creativity and technology.

The panel has been organised with Nickelodeon as its official partner. On Tuesday June13, Variety’s chief film critic Peter Debruge will encourage his guests to wonder about the future of the art form, starting with Latifa Ouaou, EVP of Paramount and Nickelodeon Animation, who also executive produced “The Grinch” and “Minions: The Rise of Gru.” “Breaking the boundaries of animation is such a great topic to speak about because it’s a very exciting time in animation,” she notes.  “[‘Spider-Man: Across the] Spider-Verse’ was the beginning of a new wave in animation.

It gave us the freedom to move away from conventional realism and into bold and abstract expressions of realities. The future is no longer predictable in terms of what to expect next.

And that is exciting.” Nora Twomey, co-founder of Cartoon Saloon – a Kilkenny-based animation film, short film and television studio behind such hits as Oscar-nominated “The Secret of Kells” and “The Song of the Sea” – adds: “Recently, a number of films, series and games have stood out from the crowd because of brave artistic choices.