post-SICAF 2010, South Korea Animation News

The 14th Annual Seoul International Cartoon & Animation Festival (Seoul, South Korea) has come and gone, and with its conclusion also come the numerous juried and audience awards offered to the directors and animators of animation screened at the festival. South Korea's yearly deluge of character licensing, animation exhibition, and industry networking always comes to a point at the Seoul Int'l Cartoon & Animation Fest (SICAF); this year's event witnessed an expansion of audience/walk-in interactivity on showroom floors and the usual screening of young, talented filmmakers from around the world [recent A.I. news: "SICAF 2010 Event Coverage" (07/2010)].

To begin with, animation awarded to features toward the conclusion of SICAF 2010 included the Grand Prize for What is Not Romance? (Korea; 2009) and the Jury Special Prize to Shinsuke Sato's CG movie Oblivion Island (Japan; 2009).

The first of these two was a 2D project directed by three graduates of the Korea Academy of Film Arts, and followed the struggles of a husband and wife of twenty-seven years in search of romance. The other, the fantasy and adventure title Oblivion Island: Haruka and the Magic Mirror, is the first computer animated feature by Production I.G.

SICAF 2010's Promotional Plan (SPP) was a pitch session for several animation studios and independent producers to gain the perspective of an industry panel. Some projects have made more headway than others, and some projects have a more local market in mind than others; but many of the animations presented at this year's Festival were certainly worth a look. There are three awards/honors at SPP each year -- Best Planning, Best Creativity, and Best Technology.

from Da.Hai (top) and What's the Big Idea? (bottom).

The SPP Best Planning award went to Roi Visual (Seoul, South Korea) for their CG preschool series Robocar Poli. The studio's project is about a group of friendly, talking emergency vehicles (fire truck, ambulance &c.), who zip around helping other cars or trucks in need.

B&T Studio (Beijing, China) took home Best Technology with their prospective feature animation Da.Hai dazzling viewers at the Seoul cartoon festival.

Thirdly, Paris, France's Planet Nemo Animation, who is also contributing to the international financing of Da.Hai, earned the Best Creativity prize for their new short-form preschool series What's the Big Idea? The educational CG title, targeting upper preschool, is still in development, but looks to encourage children to search for answers -- to question anything and everything in their surrounding environment.

Festival awards in the category of Short Films (Professional) included: "The Employment" (Argentina; 2008), directed by Santiago Grazzo, winning two awards, both the Grand Prize and Audience Choice. "Madagascar, A Journey Diary" (France; 2009), an eleven-minute film directed by Bastien Dubois, earned Special Distinction. "Videogame, A Loop Experiment" (Italy; 2009), from Donato Sansone, was awarded the Jury Special Prize.

from "The Forest"

In Short Films (Student/Graduation): "The Forest" (Germany; 2009), from David Scharf, the emotional tale of an adolescent imprisoned for daydreaming, took home the Grand Prize. "Smolik" (Portugal; 2009), an impressive hand-drawn epic about light versus dark by Cristiano Mourato, rightfully earned "Special Distinction" at SICAF 2010. "The Green Willow" (Taiwan; 2010), an elegant short film about a Tsin Dynasty era father, widowed, who contemplates ways to protect his virgin daughter, earned the Jury Special Prize.

Television & Commissioned Films: The Mouse with a Mouth (Belgium; 2008), a twenty-minute paper cut-out and watercolor animation directed by industry veteran Andrea Kiss, earned Special Distinction (TV series, TV special). Dontuch Kingdom (Korea; 2008), directed by Lee Do-sik, also took home Special Distinction (Advertising Film, Video Clips, &c.). "Little Frog: Train Song" (Korea; 2009), directed and animated by Han Seung-mu at less than three minutes, was awarded the Jury Special Prize (Advertising Film, Video Clips, &c.). A music video for the musician Ethav, "Sleep" (UK; 2009), from Tibor Banoczki and Sarolta Szabo, earned a Special Distinction (Advertising Film, Video Clips, &c.) as well.