Lo is an experienced anime producer and began independent anime creation in 1977. His works won the first prize at the Hong Kong Independent Short Film Festival for four consecutive times and he was promoted as panel member. In the next year, he joined the Radio Television Hong Kong to work as cartoon producer until 1993. Over recent years, he spent efforts on promotion of the anime industry in Hong Kong and planning of anime exhibitions. Recently, he worked as the curator of the 50 Years of Hong Kong and Taiwanese Animation. He currently worked as Secretary General of the Hong Kong Animation and Culture Association.
Hosted by TBS, the Asian video creation competition DigiCon6 Asia took place in Tokyo in November last year. It is the 19th edition, which is also a fruitful one. I was honoured to serve as one of the international judges at this time.
On 9 November, I, together with other six animators and filmmakers from Malaysia, Korea, France and Japan, spending a half day picking out the most distinguished “Grand Award” from the Gold Prize works of 12 competition areas. These 12 works represent the most outstanding performance of every competition area last year. It wouldn’t only be an animation but it could also be an innovative work of video creation. It was a coincidence that at this edition, all the Gold Prize works were animations. Therefore, the orientation of review was more integrate. Apart from Departure from Hong Kong, I haven’t watched other works until then. It is rare that all works are of high levels, with diverse themes and techniques, the most impressive of which are the works from India, Korea and Japan. Besides, the freshman Cambodian candidate brought a production with educational meaning, featuring with local colours, pictures and music. The section of review took place at the TBS headquarter in Akasaka area. Before the screening of each works, staffs of the organiser introduced the background and the production conditions of every producer in detail. After the screening, each judge had a brief discussion and gave marks. Until all works have been played, all judges would have the second discussion in terms of the given marks, to decide the final winner of the Grand Award.
The Grand Award of DigiCon6 consists of two categories, one is “Grand Prix”, which was won by a Japanese work I Like Ducks. This work expresses the freedom of animation creation. Although it uses plane animation with simple lines, it leads the audience into a ridiculous yet interesting world at the opening scene. In this animation, the characters have vivid personalities. Through a series of plots, it seems that the audience could be enlightened with some thoughts. It is known that the author of this work engages in advertising industry, who has evolved this interesting work through people and incidents in his daily life with his imagination. The other category of the Grand Award is the “Special Jury Award”, which was won by an Indian work The Basket. This animation is a fruit from the corporation of a couple who are specialised in making stop-motion animations. It took eight years for them from planning, fundraising to filming. This stop-motion animation with 14 minutes is of extraordinarily high level. It uses delicate sceneries and stage properties to display the recent Indian appearance, while the content of which is a story between a lower-class father and his daughter. Although there is no dialogue throughout the whole film, it does confer a moving story, fully displaying the “power” of animations!
I always believe that a great work would never be lack of audience. This time, during the process of reviewing, I directly tasted the meaning of it. The story went that it could only have two categories of the Grand Award and the Hong Kong work Departure could not get any of it. In fact, all judges thought highly of the work Departure. Although some judges could not fully understand the huge amount of Chinese history involved in the background of this work, they had already attracted by the colours and techniques in it. At the end of the review discussion, all judges coincidentally agreed to reward Departure. Finally, the organiser specially set up an extra award in this edition named “Gold Mention” which was awarded to Departure in order to commend its outstanding performance!
The simple yet splendid Award Ceremony was held at the Marunouchi Building near the Tokyo station in the afternoon of 11th November, which last for three hours. TBS will record and edit to produce into a TV programme. Apart from Departure, another Hong Kong work Passing Rain also won the award of the “Best Technique”. This work is a 3D computer animation, whose pictures are of Japanese style, while the content and techniques are extremely native in Hong Kong. Particularly, the processing of the delicate relationship between two students is quite successful, which is totally different compared to Departure.
Finally, as I have mentioned last time, I hope that Macao authority could collect the local animation works, allowing which to take part in the future DigiCon6 Asia. It will be a precious experience for every animation creator.
