As international a site as Cartoon Brew is, it can be hard to communicate just how vast and vibrant the international animation scene has grown over the past decade.

And nowhere is the rapidly growing international profile of animation more apparent than at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival, which takes place every June in France. We wanted to attempt to capture just a tiny bit of this global enthusiasm for the art form, so we decided to create the series, Animation Around the World, the first episode of which premieres today.

For each country we’re profiling in this series, we asked a person from that country to tell us little bit about their local animation industry – particularly, how it has developed over the last decade and what sets apart that country’s animation output from other countries in its region. We readily acknowledge that it’s impossible to convey a full picture of the animation scene in any country in just a few brief minutes, but we hope that these various snapshots will at least help our readers pick up new insights on what’s happening around the animation world.

In this first episode, we profile Mexico, South Korea, and Greece. Representing Mexico is José Iñesta, director of the Pixelatl animation conference; representing South Korea is Kwang-jin Jung of the Seoul Business Agency, a government agency that supports small businesses, including many of Korea’s 500-plus animation studios; and representing Greece is Vassilis Karamitsanis, president of ASIFA Hellas.

Watch episode one below:

Animation Around the World is produced by Cartoon Brew Editor-in-Chief Amid Amidi. Our DP and editor on the series is Damné Jesús Pérez Irigoyen.

Stay tuned next week for a new episode where we’ll speak with industry folks from South Africa, Brazil, and Poland.

Latest News from Cartoon Brew