Among 311 entries from 25 countries, the International Selection Committee (Taku Furokawa, Japan, Chris Robinson, Canada, Detelina G. Kreck, Germany, Erica Russell, U.K. and Kim Sae Hoon, Korea) selected 88 films for the main competition program. Only films without major awards from other festivals were allowed to compete, which led to a festival joke, kidding about "a festival of losers." Nevertheless, several awarded shorts were invited to attend the out of competition program.

l995 - 1995, Paul de Nooijer's film which chronicles war destruction in Europe, was awarded a special prize.

Unique Korea
Never forget your business cards in Korea! In a strong hierarchical society everybody has to know their right place. Never say, "Mr. Kim and Mr. Lee called, please call back," because everybody's last name is Kim and Lee! You are welcome to enjoy your stay, but never complain. It's a bad omen, even worse than the number 4. You cannot find a 4th floor in a hotel or in a public building. They ignore it.

Films containing erotic and homosexual material, such as Barry Purves' Achilles, had to be cleared with local censors for exhibition at the festival.

The organizing committee, managed by Daniel Lee, had to resolve a few problems. The primary one was obtaining permission from the local censors to exhibit erotic films and films with homosexual messages. It isn't easy to imagine how difficult a problem this can be for a more closed country with a traditional, structured society. You have to comprehend traditional Korean society and modern culture to understand that it is a matter of long historical development, of religious dogma forbidding even the slightest expression of pornographic or homosexual aesthetics in art. Korean society follows its own laws based on Confucian ethics which say that you have to be friendly to guests and "never lose face," which means answers like, "I don't know what you are speaking about," when asked uncomfortable questions.

Despite Seoul's heavy traffic, dominated by the domestic Hyundai and Daewoo cars, and local communication problems, the few international guests met a country of rapid economical and industrial development on all levels. It has a right to be called the rising tiger. Behind a few art films hides a powerful animation industry of big, professional studios which employ 650, 1500 or more animators, mainly female. They use self-made software and also perform a lot of hand-drawn animation. They specialize in hand-drawn animation because puppet, clay and other alternative techniques are not considered as trendy. A rich drawing tradition is the base for the elaborate skills of the young girls working in Korea. The working week is ten hours per day, six days per week. Nearly all major American television studios produce their shows in Korea. A few Europeans, like Le Studio Ellipse, also send their work to Korea. These studios are seeking good work at reasonable prices, and that's what they get for sure. It is worthwhile to invest money in this country. The product is of uncompromising quality. Whether or not this market stays stable is doubtful; the cold war between North and South Korea continues. One can smell it in the air. In two years time, the next Expo has ambitions to enter ASIFA, and to gain even more international grandeur and appeal.

Detelina Grigorova-Kreck is a producer, director and distributor based in Wiesbaden, Germany. She has served on a number of International Animation Festival Juries and Selection Committees. In the early 1980s, she was in charge of programs for the World Animated Film Festival in Varna.