With foreign-made animation banned during prime cartoon-viewing time on Chinese television, domestic producers are joining forces to step up their own toon output. More than 40 well-known animation companies from Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou have agreed to participate in a so-called ‘Cartoon City’ established by the Changzhou National Hi-tech District, based in the Jiangsu province. With cooperative agreements from eight overseas entities from Korea, India, Canada, Malaysia and Singapore, the coalition aims to produce 12 animated productions representing 6,251 minutes of animation over the next year and a half.
Animation was identified by the Changzhou Party in 2004 as an industry that had great potential to boost the local economy of the Yangtze River Delta. Changzhou has since sponsored the annual International Cartoon Festival and developed a State-level cartoon art exchange platform with international participants, making it the official State Animation Base.
In support of the initiative, The Changzhou Municipal Government is sponsoring the International Cartoon Art Festival, which involves annual activities with Korea’s Jiangyuan Animation Institute and U.S.-based Walt Disney Co. Other programs include the China Creative Idea Market, which will team entities from the U.S., Canada, France, Japan and Spain for cooperative projects, and technical services for post-production and education.
By year’s end, Changzhou hopes to have another 50 animation companies set up shop in Cartoon City. To feed the need for talent, 12 colleges and universities located in Changzhou have adopted an animation major and relevant courses. The province also hopes to lure the nation’s top animation scriptwriters and will host an auditing platform for scribes.
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