By Cho A-la and Kim Young Shin

France’s Annecy International Animated Film Festival will now be held annually in Seoul starting in September 2019.

The Seoul Business Agency (SBA) has signed an MOU with City of Moving Images, the organizing committee of the Annecy International Animated Film Festival, to host the 2019 Annecy Asia Animated Festival in Seoul. The agreement was signed in Annecy, France, on June 13.

Seoul's first Annecy Asia Animated Festival will be held at the Digital Media City in Sangam-dong, northwestern Seoul, in 2019. Starting in 2020, the annual event will take place elsewhere in Seoul, such as at the Seoul Animated Center or at the grass plaza in front of Seoul City Hall.

“The Annecy International Animated Film Festival will become a major cultural event in Seoul and boost the number of tourists visiting for cultural content,” said Seoul Business Agency CEO Joo Hyeong Cheol. “We will turn the Annecy Asia Animated Festival in Seoul into a representative cultural event for Korea through systematic preparation.”

The Annecy International Animated Film Festival started off in 1956 as a non-competitive program at the Cannes film festival. It moved to Annecy in 1960 and established itself as an independent international animated film festival. Currently, it's considered one of the big four international animated film festivals in the world, along with the ones in Ottawa, Canada, Hiroshima, Japan, and in Zagreb, Croatia.

ala0919@korea.kr