Directorialduo Nick Park and Steve Box, the UK's Aardmananimation studios behind their Wallace& Gromit: The Curse Of TheWere-Rabbit, and Italian distributor Mikado Film are among the nominees forthis year's Cartoon Movie Tributes which will be announced at the eighthedition of the Cartoon Movie co-production market at the BabelsbergStudios in Potsdam from March 9-11.

Parkand Box are nominated in the Tribute category for Best Direction along withMichel Ocelot and Benedict Galup (Kirikou And The Wild Beast), Jorgen Lerdam andAnders Sorensen (Pettson And Findus: The TomteMachine) and Aron Gauder(The District).

Thenominations for the Best European Distributor have gone to France's Gebeka Films, Switzerland's Mont-Blanc Distribution,Italy's Mikado Film and Sweden's Folkets Bio, whilethe distinction as Best European Production Company for services and commitmentto the European animation film will be decided among DygraFilms (Midsummer Dream), M6 Studio (Asterix And The Vikings), TV Loonland/Happy Life Animation (Pettson And Findus), and Aardman (Wallace & Gromit:The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit).

Accordingto Cartoon Movie's organisers, the largest number of projectsbeing presented at the co-production market this year are from France and Spain, with 14 and 11animated features respectively. The UK, Germany, Denmark and Sweden follow with threeprojects each, while Belgium and Finland are represented withtwo projects each and Ireland, Latvia, Poland, the Czech Republic and Estonia are each sending oneproject to Potsdam.

Intotal, 46 projects from 13 European countries with an overall budget of over $355.7m (Euros300m) have been selected to be pitched to more than 100 potential distributorsand financiers including representatives from Universal, Warner, DreamWorks, Kinowelt, Celluloid Dreams, Disney Channel, Canal +, Cofiloisirs and EM.TV.

Amongthe selected projects are completed films such as M6 Studio's Asterix And The Vikings,Filmax Animation's Gisaku and MAUR Film's Filmfarum 2 as well as films currently inpost-production such as Denmark's The Ugly Duckling And Me andEstonia's Lotte From Gadgetville.