Sep 1, 2016

Exclusive: Trailer for Macedonia's first animated feature, "John Vardar vs Galaxy"

The young Macedonian firm Lynx Animation Studios is celebrating its one-year anniversary today, and in honor of that occasion, they're releasing the teaser trailer for their hand-drawn animated feature John Vardar vs. the Galaxy, which is set to beocme Macedonia's first full-length animated feature project.

Cartoon Brew has the exclusive debut of the teaser:

Envisioned as the “most ridiculous space-opera ever,” the family-friendly story follows the adventures of a human, John Vardar, who is kidnapped by aliens and ends up with the universe's most powerful weapon stuck in his head, making everything that he thinks turn into reality.

Development on the film began in 2009, inspired by a series of drawings by illustrator and concept artist Mihajlo Dimitrievski. As the project has evolved over the years, it has been presented at various European pitching and co-production events including Paris Cross Video Days, Sofia Meetings, Animation Production Day Stuttgart, and the Visegrad Animation Forum.

John Vardar vs. the Galaxy's creative team is led by Goce Cvetanovski as director and writer, Mihajlo Dimitrievski as art director, and Benjamin Hotton as animation director.

The anticipated release date for the feature is Christmas 2019. It's currently in the late pre-production phase (financed internally by Lynx), and about 50% of the film's 2.3 million Euro production budget is secured. Lynx hopes to have the financing completed by early 2017 and begin production shortly thereafter. “There are some private investors interested in the project, and if they enter, that would accelerate the production process and maybe even allow us to cast some star actors,” director Goce Cvetanovski told Cartoon Brew.

The financial structure of the production still isn't locked, but Lynx anticipates that the film will be a co-production between Macedonia, Germany, France, Ukraine, and Bulgaria. “We have signed memo-deals with producers from all these countries and further negotiations and film fund submissions are underway,” said Cvetanovski.

In the meantime, Lynx is developing and producing plenty of other projects. The studio currently makes its own animated shorts and mobile games for Android and iOS, while performing service work for international clients, ranging from illustration and concept art through finished animation.

Lynx has been selected to pitch its children's TV series Dragongarten later this month at Cartoon Forum in Toulouse, France.