The 2009 Seoul International Cartoon & Animation Festival

An animation exhibition and cartoon competition event, the 13th Seoul International Cartoon & Animation Festival (SICAF) officially kicks off this week. This year's annual event, much like others, promises to do justice to those countless young, eager, struggling, or otherwise hungry animators or comics artists. The festival offers one of the largest platforms in all of East Asia for the creative arts. SICAF 2009 has given the spotlight to an impressive assortment of South Korean-born cartoons this year, and likewise angles to profile or hold specialized screenings for animated television and theatrical presentations from France, Japan, Estonia, Iran, and several other countries.

The theme of this year's SICAF has deep roots in the history of the Korean comics community. Celebrating the centennial of the birth of Korean comics, this year's convention concept has been succinctly worded: "Time Capsule: 100-year Trip." There will be a special exhibit that chronicles the history of Korean comics throughout the past century, highlighting several moments of social, political, and cultural breakthroughs South Korea has combat in comic form.

The 2009 Seoul International Cartoon & Animation Festival is hosted by the Korea Creative Content Agency in association with other character licensing entities.

The 2009 SICAF (July 22 - July 26, 2009), generally speaking, is broken up into more traditional components of content exhibition, competitions, buying and exposition sessions, and much more. This year, the Korea animation community is emphasizing international co-production ventures and the establishment of strong business partnerships with other, overseas studios in good standing. The self-congratulatory friction often propagated by festival events such as these will be inevitable, but many are seriously analyzing the way in which Korean animation is marketed overseas -- debating the legitimacy and/or necessity of certain avenues of co-development and co-production. The day before SICAF begins, industry notable Lee Byung-gyu leads a panel that hopes to provide solutions to issues relating the joint, international production of animation. The panel discussions will serve as an interesting precursor to an ever-expanding exhibition and promotion of quality Korean content

June Kim from Fly June (2011),
more on page four.

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The general screening this year has a lot of great titles for Korea-based animation enthusiasts to enjoy.

From Jacques-Rémy Girerd's impeccable hand-drawn fantasy Mia et le Migou (France; 2008), to Philip Hunt's amusing short film Lost and Found (UK; 2008), to Nina Paley's emotional, multi-media break-up tale Sita Sings the Blues (U.S.; 2008), to a showing later in the week called "The Best of Iranian Animation" and the "Japan Media Arts Festival" -- there's plenty of variety.

Elsewhere, the 2009 Seoul International Cartoon & Animation Festival Promotional Plan, or SPP (SICAF Promotional Plan), returns this year. The SPP is a competitive stage. SICAF 2009 has notably absorbed the Seoul Character & Licensing Fair into the SPP, hopefully increasing involvement from animation industry professionals. The SPP nevertheless still proposes animations currently in development (or the earliest stages of production) to an audience of buyers of international reputation. Last year, several good Korean-produced content was profiled, in particular a TV-version of Yobi the Five-Tailed Fox; this year's Promotional Plan promises just as great a selection. One of the finalists this year, for example, is Studio DONGDONG's tenderhearted feature film Fly June (Korea; 2011).