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Cartoon art seeking rebirth
The city of Changzhou, host of a high-profile international cartoon fair, is determined to play a role in restoring the country's golden cartoon-making past. Changzhou is also trying to foster the cartoon industry into one of its economic pillars along with other products, such as audio-visual works, toys and garments. The city was chosen as the host to the festival because of its rich resources in both cartoon creative personnel and technology, said Lu Jun, director of the Foreign Culture Exchange Centre under the Ministry of Culture. China is making a return to the cartoon world by combining government support and private funds so as to restore its past glory in the field, an official with the organizing committee of 2004 China International Cartoon and Digital Art Festival said. Lu also said the government will give more support to the development of cartoon industry in terms of policy and financial assistance. At present, most cartoon companies are financed by private funds which are obviously not enough to make the industry big and strong. The city is determined to make the festival the most popular and famous one in Asia and create a cartoon brand with its own intellectual property rights in five years, said Ju Yaqin, vice-mayor of Changzhou. "The purpose of the festival is to make our city a platform for international exchanges in the cartoon industry and promote its development," Ju added. During the week-long festival which opened yesterday, a Cartoon and Digital Exhibition and China and Foreign Cartoon Film Show will be staged. Some globally renowned cartoonists will make speeches at the Forum on the Cartoon Industry, discussing the use of modern technology in cartooning and shed light on the future of the industry. The event is sponsored by the Foreign Culture Exchange Centre, the Changzhou city government and the Jiangsu Provincial Information Office. China was once in the lead in cartooning in the 1960s and produced many excellent cartoon films, such as the Monkey King Making Havoc in Heaven, Three Monks and the Shepherd's Flute. However, the industry went stagnant in the 1970s and 1980s and children in the country mainly enjoyed cartoons imported from other countries, especially those from Japan and the United States. At one time, 90 per cent of the cartoon programs on TV was foreign. Changzhou also has a good foundation for the development of cartoon industry. It established the country's first ever cartoon park, the Dinosaur Theme Park, in 2000. It has served as a State-level science education base and receive hundreds of thousands of visitors each year. |
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