After the Feinaki Beijing Animation Week, a dynamic Chinese festival committed to showing top-flight artistic animation, China is going to have another animation festival launching in 2020.
The West Lake International Animation Festival (IAF) will debut in Hangzhou, China on 16 April 2020 and continue till 19 April. IAF subsequently will be held every two years.
IAF has an esteemed curatorial team and ambitious programming involved with Liu Jian (the acclaimed director of indie feature Have a Nice Day) as the artistic director. Among other experts, is Holland Animation Film Festival former director Gerben Schermer. He resigned last year after the dispute with the festival’s board.
For its first edition, IAF is going to be hosted by the China Academy of Art and will feature three strands – a competition, a non-competitive screening section and a forum. The competition will be divided among international shorts and international student films. The forum will invite animators, scholars and producers who’ll run seminars, workshops, and involve other activities.
Submissions for the competition are being accepted until 31 January, 2020 and entry is free. The festival’s website currently lists two out-of-competition screenings: a panorama of Chinese independent animation since 1990 and a programme of recent films from across the world.
