Hangzhou to hold cartoon and animation carnival

The city of Hangzhou in Zhejiang province will hold the 11th China International Cartoon and Animation Festival (CICAF) at the White Horse Lake Animation Plaza in Binjiang District from Apr 28 to May 3.

CICAF has been held for ten consecutive years with the aim of publicizing Hangzhou's city image and facilitating more business cooperation. It has become one of the world's largest and most influential festivals of its kind.

The festival will use the White Horse Lake Animation Plaza as its main venue in addition to 13 other sub-venues. A total of 43 events will be staged. The events carry the five themes of Expo, Business Negotiation, Competition, Forum, and Activities.

For animation lovers, this is a must to see festival which is sure to ignite some passion with its six highlighted features.

Highlight 1:

The 11th festival provides more intelligent online services. It will launch a mobile App for exhibitors, helping them get access to functions such as online news, information browsing, and business appointments and negotiations.

For the convenience of visitors, the festival has teamed up with Taobao.com, China's largest e-commerce platform, to allow visitors to book pre-sale tickets online, preview the pavilions and animation products, and purchase them with an express service.

The festival has also established an online human resources market where recruiters can carry out face to face meetings and interviews with animation professionals.

Highlight 2:

The Animation Industry Transaction Fair will display various resources, including international sales channels, traditional industries and animation derivatives projects.

It has launched an independent booth to introduce the British animation products and has established a platform for trading animation resources between China and the overseas countries. The festival will hold a press conference to give the animation industry more opportunities to cooperate with the traditional industries.

The festival will also call on the Franchising/IP & Cooperation Negotiation to protect the copyright of animation products and network literature work. It will also hold an Investment Negotiation Fair where the "Golden Monkey King" Award - set with the slogan of 'high quality, high character, and high taste' – will be awarded, in the hope of tapping into new talent and more excellent cartoon and animation products.

Highlight 3:

More than 500 animation companies from 78 countries and regions will attend the festival, where 1,007 candidate works from 33 countries will compete for the Golden Monkey King Award. The Cosplay Super Show will be held in nine countries and regions. The "Magic Eyes" International Youths' Comics Competition will be held in three countries-Canada, Japan and Malaysia.

Highlight 4:

Standing out at the festival will be leading global animation enterprises such as Walt Disney Company, DreamWorks SKG, and Nickelodeon, France's Group Dargaud, Britain's Laika Animation. Well-known companies from China will also appear at the event, including the media giants CCTV and China Film Group Corporation, Alibaba Corporation and the internet company NetEase.

Nelson Lowry, who has been instrumental in helping Laika create films such as Coraline and the forthcoming ParaNorman, will give a lecture at the festival.

Highlight 5:

The festival will put on a special ceremony which will combine the Golden Monkey King Award Competition and Animation Symphonic Concert. The opening film of the ceremony, which has won global fame, was made in Hangzhou and incorporates Chinese cultural elements.

Highlight 6:

A train with theme of dream and animation elements will be running on Hangzhou Subway Line 1.