MIFA, the content market inside the Annecy Festival in France, develops today its 2026 second full journey with clear trends everyone saw yesterday: collaborations everywhere, not only to surpass the current financing problems, but also to open or strengthen markets. Just watching the pictures of this daily, you see many alliances between public entities, private titans with digital first players, many public programs supporting animation production. Nobody can alone anymore. But also, there are here very interesting trendy opinions of big players and buyers, to take in mind…

Julien Borde, CEO, Mediawan Kids & Family, France: ‘Now we have two roads: to produce premium animation for big broadcasters and streaming platforms, and Digital First, with YouTube players as Madbox and El Reino infantil. What is the difference in production among them? In Digital First you have to understand the data you receive to drive new episodes/characters and to build 360 communities, transmedia and interactive media’. Marianella Gomis, Gookapi, Spain: ‘The secret to make interactivity work? To make the system very friendly, to think the options from the beginning and to develop very different plots while the user chooses’.

Lance Thornton, product director, Autodesk: ‘We are leaders in Artificial Intelligence solutions for audiovisual industry, to optimize production processes, avoid mistakes, save costs and time. It is easier to talk with producers at MIFA than with directors or actors in Annecy Festival, because they are more open mind and see the budget side. AI is here for help, as a new step of automatization, evolution, it is not to be discussed’. Prensario note: all the big studios are already working with Autodesk: there is a Sony co-production, Netflix, Amazon, Disney, Dreamworks, etc.

Julia Elstner, CEO, Unifrance: ‘New tips this year? We are not only exporting French co-productions to the world, but also to bring fresh ideas from away markets. We have strong collaborations with TAICCA (Taiwan) and with Anima Mundi, to connect with Europe animation ecosystem’. Sebastien Dumont, Peyo, Belgium: ‘New trends? Buyers show good demand for nostalgic products, the original "Smurf" series, to watch parents and children together, and also for stand-alone content in the middle of seasons, as "Smurf Adventures" (2x22’) while we lunch the new season’.

Some members of the content industry usually say that MIFA is not a market for buyers, it is more for producers… nonsense, it is full of content buyers here around. What do they are looking for? Julien Figue, M6’s Gulli, France: ‘We are a generalist broadcaster, so we look for all kinds of animation, especially the 4 to 10 target. Fresh ideas are very welcome’. Susanna Mazzoleni, WBD EMEA: ‘I am buying especially for Boing, the joint venture between WBD with Mediaset in Italy. Animation has market spaces that can be worked well’.

Doris Vogelmann, V-Me (USA): ‘We are looking for edutainment, which is not easy to find good. Also, I’d like to against some global trends, not all the Asian animation is good. I’ve bought to Banijay ‘Stan & Gran’, adventures between a grandfather and his grandson. All-time values…’. Laura Monteiro, RTVE Spain: ‘We are making focus this year on +7 animations, with fresh scripts, suitable for free TV and that can travel abroad’. Brenda Maffuchi, De Agostini, Italy: ‘As usual, we look for animation and live action for kids, mainly comedies and fresh stories, to reinforce the audiences’.

Nicolás Smirnoff

If you want to receive our Daily Reports, please send an email to newsletter@prensario.info with your email and contact details