Animation festival SICAF focuses on life
“Let Me Eat Your Pancreas” opens Seoul International Cartoon & Animation Festival that will kick off in Seoul, Thursday. / Courtesy of SICAF
By Park Jin-hai
With the local webtoon market growing rapidly, the Seoul International Cartoon & Animation Festival (SICAF), one the two oldest animation festivals along with the recently finished Bucheon International Comics Festival, kicks off a four-day event on Thursday in Dongdaemun, eastern Seoul.
The local webtoon market grew into a 584 billion won market in 2016, from 150 billion in 2013. It is expected to surpass 1 trillion won by 2020, doubling its size in four years, according to KT's economic and business research institute.
SICAF, marking its 22nd year, will hold screenings and exhibitions on the theme of “Life” at Dongdaemun Design Plaza and Megabox Dongdaemun. Starting with screening of the festival opener “Let Me Eat Your Pancreas” from Japan, the festival will screen 72 selected animations from 28 countries.
“Let Me Eat Your Pancreas,” an adaptation of thee popular novel by Yoru Sumino of the same name, tells the romance story of a terminally ill teen girl and lonely boy. “The animated film accepts death as part of one's life and rekindles the value of being alive that people take for granted. It represents life as the festival is focused on,” the festival's organizing committee stated.
Along with introducing rarely screened central and eastern European animations, the festival will hold a special exhibition to commemorate the late director Shin Dong-hun who made Korea's first theatrical feature-length animated movie “A Story of Hong Gil-dong” (1967). Last year's SICAF Comic Awards winner, cartoonist Shin Il-sook, will have a solo exhibition, representing her representative works of “4 Daughters of Armian” and SF fantasy webtoon “Kaya.”
In a bid to improve understanding of North Korean animations, Hong Joo-ok, professor of Hanyang Cyber University, will hold a talk with audiences introducing North Korean animations.
During the festival, the “Paper Boyfriend Exhibition” will introduce webtoon fans to the charms of popular male characters of “Yumi's Cells,” “Cheese in the Trap,” “Spirit Fingers” and others.
Animation legend Glenn Vilppu, who has given lectures to artists at Disney, Warner Bros and Dreamworks, will give a lecture at the festival, while Disney's character technical director Iker J. de Ios Mozos will speak about his career as an animator. Rafa Zabala, senior modeler at Lucasfilm who worked on 3D characters in games and films such as “Clash of Clans,” “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” and “Iron Man 3,” will lecture on 3D modeling.
Diverse character models from Gundam to plastic models will be displayed in the section for Kidults. Visit
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