Animation festival sees Chinese stories gain favor overseas

Chinese elements favored by overseas buyers

For Chinese animators, their biggest harvest from this year's event is having developed a global vision and deepened international exchanges. Revolving around the theme of "Cooperation and Win-Win", the 2018 International Cartoon & Animation Alliance Hangzhou Summit saw organizers of 11 of the world's top animation festivals discuss the operational strategies used for promoting their animation festivals globally.

The animated cartoon, a universal cultural language, is serving as a new carrier for Chinese culture to go global.

For example, in April 2018, at the MIPTV/MIPCOM held in France, more than 200 new shows, including 38 cartoons, from 34 Chinese animation companies were on display at the festival, where animations and documentaries were quite popular.

Recent years have also seen the boom of Sino-foreign animation coproductions which are increasingly adored by international audiences.

Apart from the success of the China-US-Russia 3D animated flick Sun Duck and the China-Russia film Snow Queen 3, many other coproductions are performing strongly at the global market.

"Go Brother, an animated series produced by v.qq.com, is reported to have once topped a popular Japanese anime website," said Wang Juan, editor-in-chief of v.qq.com. "The domestic animated series SuperBOOMi has been released in Canada and CoNaBlue has gained the BBC's favor soon after its presale in South Asian countries."

"Exporting quality animated shows can help Chinese culture resonate across the globe. Presented in a way that can be easily accepted by younger audiences, Chinese culture can be subtly exchanged with the world's other cultures," added Wang.

Lee Unkrich, director of the 2017 hit Coco, showed intense interest in Chinese culture at the summit. "Chinese culture, with its profundity, can be a rich source of inspiration for me. I'm looking forward to telling 'Chinese stories' in my own way," he said.