Academy Award-qualifying Bucheon International Animation Festival screens 155 films from 31 countries; short film winners to be revealed Tuesday
France's "Little Amelie" by Mailys Vallade and Liane-Cho Han claimed the grand prize at the 27th Bucheon International Animation Festival on Sunday, as the festival announced the winners of its feature-length competition midway through the five-day event.
"Little Amelie," a watercolor-toned portrait of childhood empathy and growth, which premiered at Cannes in May, competed against nine other international features.
Japan's "Zombie Land Saga: Yumeginga Paradise" secured the audience award, while "Dandelion's Odyssey" — a Franco-Belgian production blending 260 days of time-lapse photography with 3D animation — earned the jury prize.
South Korea's "Pilgrims," adapted from Kim Cho-yeop's novel and voiced by Park Ji-hu and Kim Hyang-gi, received the technology award.
Winners in short film, graduation, TV and commissioned categories will be announced Tuesday, the festival's closing day. BIAF's short film grand prize winner automatically qualifies for Oscar consideration, making BIAF Asia's only Academy Award-qualifying animation festival.
Opening ceremony honors 'Flow' producer, late festival founder
The festival opened Friday at the Korea Manhwa Museum with two tributes. Producer Ron Dyens received recognition for "Flow," the wordless Latvian animation about animals surviving a mysterious flood that won this year's Oscar and Golden Globe for best animated feature.
The late Hanseo University professor Jang Dong-ryul was honored posthumously for his contributions as an early organizing member who helped transform what began as a student-run festival into an internationally recognized event.
Yasuhiro Aoki's monumental "ChaO," winner of the feature competition at this year's Annecy International Animation Film Festival, screened as the opening film. The production took nine years from conception to release and employed over 100,000 hand-drawn frames.
Directors debate AI's role in animation
The animation industry's ongoing conversation about artificial intelligence came to light during Sunday afternoon's talk when South Korean directors Yeon Sang-ho ("Train to Busan") and Hong Jun-pyo ("Chun Tae-il: A Flame That Lives On") explored differing perspectives at Bucheon's Webtoon Convergence Center.
Yeon, who made hit animated features including "The King of Pigs" and "The Fake" before moving to live-action, positioned AI as a potential solution to pipeline problems endemic to Korean animation, where specialized techniques become obsolete between projects.
"We trained people for skills only our studio used. Ten years of experience that meant nothing elsewhere," he said, reflecting on his hiatus from animation after 2013's "The Fake." He compared current anxieties within the industry to past resistance against digital tools: "The same people who claimed tablets lacked pencil's soul are now panicking about AI."
Hong, currently working on the crowd-funded feature "Ggoma" about a bear that has escaped a zoo, expressed measured enthusiasm alongside concerns for colleagues potentially displaced by automation. His team deploys AI to flag color-correction errors across thousands of frames — "passive usage" that frees artists from tedium. But the director acknowledged feeling conflicted about the technology's implications.
"I see talented artists doing work that AI could handle, and it becomes difficult to suggest using it," he said.
Both directors traced the technological breakthroughs that have reshaped the industry, from Mirage software that enabled their early graduation works to Blender tools now rendering the Seoul landscapes in "Ggoma," where "natural environments become characters themselves." Hong also credited BIAF's production support program for funding crucial pre-production phases "when nothing's visible yet but resources are desperately needed."
Their discussion touched on broader questions about how to define animation as a medium. Yeon argued that distinctions between live-action and animation may no longer be valid today — "all film is symbolic play" — while Hong maintained that different mediums resonate with audiences differently, particularly with children. Both agreed, however, that in an era dominated by algorithms, content now matters more than visual polish.
"My daughter doesn't care how we rendered the dinosaur," Yeon said. "She wants to know what it's eating."
Weekend programming highlights event's global scope
Other weekend events included Sunday's master class with Pixar veteran Geefwee Boedoe, whose credits span "Monsters, Inc." to "Zootopia." The session drew over 200 participants as Boedoe demonstrated sketch work and character design processes before fielding questions about production workflows at major studios.
Networking sessions throughout the weekend connected animators, producers and distributors from across the globe. The Animation Meet-up program at the Webtoon Convergence Center on Sunday evening provided a venue for industry professionals to discuss emerging trends and forge international partnerships.
Meanwhile, Saturday's programming featured the Bucheon Philharmonic Orchestra performing animation soundtracks at the Bucheon Arts Center, followed by an outdoor screening of "King of Kings" at City Hall Plaza — a faith-based animated feature that grossed over $60 million in North America earlier this year.
The festival, running through Tuesday, screens 155 works from 31 countries across multiple venues in Bucheon, Gyeonggi Province.
moonkihoon@heraldcorp.com
