A world of animation in 6 days

Features

Published: 08 Aug. 2003, 01:31

A world of animation in 6 days

It’s been a long time since animation was just for kids. It’s now a significant part of the culture industry. It’s an art form that can accomodate a wide range of imagination, and the competence of its practitioners has risen a great deal. What’s more, there’s money in it. Thus, more and more countries are looking to this rising field.
Featuring some of the best animation from around the world, the 7th Seoul International Cartoon and Animation Festival (SICAF) will be held Tuesday through Aug. 17. This year’s festival will be larger in scale and richer in content, thanks to full sponsorship by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.
Besides the animated film festival itself, SICAF will feature an exhibition area (dubbed Toonpark) and three days of marketing conferences and symposiums.
With the domestic animated feature animation “Mangchi (Hammer Boy)” as its opening film, the film festival, titled Animasia, will be conducted in competition and non-competition sections.
Competition categories include feature-length films, short films, advertising commercials, online animation and a “special” category. A total of 60 million won ($50,600) in prizes will be awarded.
Five films will compete in the feature animation section: “Dragon Hill,” a fantasy by Angel Izquierdo of Spain; “My Life as McDull,” by Taiwanese filmmaker Toe Yuen; “Cowboy Bebop: The Movie,” Japan’s Shinichiro Watanabe’s popular futuristic story about bounty hunters; “The Legend of the Sky Kingdom,” a stop-motion animation film about an underground city by Roger Hawkins of Zimbabwe, and “Oseam,” a tale of two orphans living in a Buddhist temple, by local director Sung Baek-yuop.
Films from Britain, France, Poland, Argentina and the United States, not to mention Asia, will compete. “Atama Yama (Mt. Head),” the winner of the short film section at this year’s Annecy animation festival, directed by Koji Yamamura of Japan; “Feelings from Mountains and Water,” adapting the style of Eastern paintings, by a team of Chinese animators, and “O-Nu-Ri,” the new short film by Lee Sung-gang, the director of the award-winning “My Beautiful Girl, Mari,” are a few that will be screened.
Visual works, games, demonstration of digital animation technologies and hands-on learning experiences will be part of the Toonpark area.

by Park Eun-sil

The festival will be held mainly at COEX center in southern Seoul. Take subway line No. 2 to Samseong station and use exit No. 6. Tickets cost 4,000 won for adults and 3,000 won for children. A pass for access to all sections is available for 40,000 won. For more information, contact (02) 3455-8487 or visit www.sicaf.or.kr.