The Studio of the Year Award 2009 will be presented to the japanese studio Sunrise Studio and to the Italian studio Musicartoon.

Sunrise Studio

Sunrise Studio, founded on September 1972 in Tokyo and actually owned by Namco Bandai, is considered the absolute worldwide leader in mecha anime production, TV animated series with robotic protagonists (often, but not always, with anthropomorphic resemblances). A leadership established since the second half of the ‘70s with the saga of Kidou Senshi Gundam, literally “Gundam, the warrior with the mobile armour”, exploded in the ‘80s – ‘90’s both with the prosecution of the same Gundam in various canonical sequels and even stories set up in parallel universes that with acclaimed original science fiction productions of an intense social political realism and remember able emotive impact. From the violent VOTOMOS to the melancholic Vifam, passing by the shocking Dougram and Layzner, the very frequent war narrative backgrounds in far aliens planets are always an excuse to represent in an allegorical way the absurdity of the racial hate and the horror of war that we live every day on earth, at our doors.
In the ‘90s Sunrise widen up its exploration of the science fiction and fantasy genres with animations that revise the relation among man, robot and the natural ecosystem (it’s enough to think about Escaflowne) and with masterpieces of aesthetic contamination such as Cowboy Bebop, incomparable synthesis of space opera (so not anymore robots but spaceships next to humans at the conquer of the stars), noir and jazz music influences. Nowadays Sunrise is a colossus of the industry of animation. At its production experience are given the TV adaptations of the manga characters most loved by the Japanese public, from the brilliant comedies such as Keroro Gunso and Yakitate!! Japan to the adventures in feudal epoch of the famous Inuyasha. But robots and their iconic strength are still the carrying board of the catalogue of Sunrise and their pride and joy. And it’s of robotic genre their latest, explosive success: Code Geass, Lelouch of the Rebellion. Maybe the only mecha anime able to compete in popularity with Gundam, which has, waiting for the thirty-year, renewed and  revived its glory both in cinema (in the trilogy of Z Gundam directed by Yoshiyuki Tomino) and in TV (with the saga of Gundam 00).

Musicartoon

Musicartoon was born in 1994 from the union of a group of professionals keen and strongly motivated, who have developed an audiovisual production company specialized on animation. On February 2002 it became the current Musicartoons.
Since the beginning the will of the partners was to conjugate the passion for traditional animation with the one for music, that in the most classical historical and worldwide cases has given birth to real and true art works (and this explains as well the name of the company). For this reason Musicartoon takes on a strong collaboration with I Piloti, a music production company that avails among the other musicians Marco Rinalduzzi.
Musicartoon starts its activity as an animation service, by collaborating for the production of spots, interactive games, advertisement, TV series and feature film with structures and studios of high profile.
The characteristics that have allowed to Musicartoon to conquer an always growing trust among the producers are many, first of all the qualities that have always distinguished the society: the respect of the production plan and professionalism. Last but not least the continuous research of technological solutions at vanguard, that in the last years made the team of Musicartoon pioneer in the use of software and innovative technologies.
By having acquired a good experience and a structural strength, Musicartoon is  popping out into the production world. To realize the TV series “Le avventure of Hocus e Lotus” (The Adventure of Hocus and Lotus), Musicartoon started a co-production with RAI Fiction and with D.I.T.I., authors of the format and of the educational method. Up today “Le avventure of Hocus e Lotus” has arrived to its 3rd season, for a total of 52 episodes, getting many prizes and national and international approval and becoming a sort of “pride and joy” for Rai, surely for the importance of the formative method that distinguishes it but also for the technical quality of its realization and direction.
Actually Musicartoon has an internal staff of 30 professionals of the sector, screenwriters, model and character designers, storyboard artists, layout artists, background artists, animators, colourists, inbetweeners and editors.

Studios of the Year

The studios awarded in the previous editions of the festival were:
Dic Entertainment Corporation (Usa), Enarmonia (Italy), Alphanim (France), Cosgrove Hall (United Kingdom), Cromosoma (Spain), De Mas & Partners (Italy), Klasky Csupo (USA), Lanterna Magica (Italy), Pixar (USA), TMS Telecom Animation Film (Japan), Odec Kid Cartoon (Belgium), Varga Holdings (Hungary), Wildbrain (USA), The Animation Band (Italy), Greenlight (Germany), CinéGroupe (Canada), Production I.G (Japan), Toei Animation (Japan), Folimage (France), HIT Entertainment (United Kingdom), Gli Alcuni (Italy), Aardman (United Kingdom), Rainbow (Italy), Cartoon-Film (Germany), Maga Animation (Italy),AKOM Production (South Korea), Cartoon One (Italy).