"Clermont Ferrand
International Short Film Festival has presented more than 7000 short films during the festival week. The festival is a very large scale and it is very well organized. During the festival, Clermont had turned into a huge fiesta party which showcased intensively high quality short films from all over the world. I was very excited to be selected for this festival. Besides, it was my first time to attend such a high level international film festival. I really appreciate that NAE gives me this opportunity to promote my animation. I’m glad to hear that through the NAE promotion, different festivals have shown their interests in my animation.







The NAE market screening for me was a win-win situation for international audience to get to know Hong Kong film industry. They showed a lot of respect to all the directors. After each short film, they gave us warm applause which was very encouraging for us. Through this trip organised by NAE, we can feel that short films are really big deal in Europe. Cinema has been considered as one of the most important forms of art in France. The audience varies from 5 to 80 years’ old. They are very patient that can wait for an hour in the queue without getting bored and talk about what they’ve watched in last two days.







This animation reflects my own life experience. The most difficult part of the production was that I took a lot of time to discuss with my animators and let them understand my expectations. The animation reflects the philosophy of how to get along with each other. Adrian, the other animator in NAE group made an interesting animation about how people find their true self. I will be glad to cooperate with him in the near future.







I hope that I can attend more international festivals like this one, especially the so-called Oscar in animation industry: Annecy International Animated Film Festival. It’s my dream
to make my own feature animation. I hope that the more experiences I gained from different festivals can lead me to get more connections and get myself closer to my dream. "









— Shared by Ho Chun-yu Nic, director of Behind the Schoolbag after attending Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival & Market 2016 in France, under the sponsorship of NAE.

“2016 is 20th anniversary of Cartoons On The Bay Festival. The theme this year is mythical story. Cartoons On The Bay is a festival with the focus on cartoon and short films. Every year the organizer of the festival invites one different country as the ‘guest country’. The guest country of this year is South Africa. The most impressive short film that I have seen from the festival is also from South Africa. Animation is a media for communication between different parts of the world. This lets me to understand different culture and rethink my culture.”



— Shared by Ho Chun-yu Nic, director of Behind
the Schoolbag after attending Cartoons on the Bay - International Cross-media and Children's Television Festival 2016 in Venice, under the sponsorship of NAE.







“It has always been inspiring for me to visit Annecy participate in the MIFA, the largest animation festival in the world. Owing to my film was selected for screening in MIFA this year, I got the chance to visit this prestigious and historical animation festival. MIFA has many years of history in France. That is why a lot of special traditions are kept. For example, people would fly the paper planes before screening. These traditions have made the festival so much different from the others. The whole festival was full of fun, may be it was due to the fact that animators are mostly playful and that was why the atmosphere was fantastic. In addition, the traditions also represent the cultural heritage, and the animation culture is being inherited through the festival. From my point of view, it is a must for animators and animation lovers to visit MIFA once in a life, to feel the local atmosphere, watch the animation works from around the world, so as to get inspirations for the future development of creation. I am now planning to produce an animated feature film, and I hope I would be able to apply the inspirations derived from the festival visit to it.”



— Shared by Ho Chun-yu Nic, director of Behind the Schoolbag after attending Annecy International Animated Film Festival and Market (MIFA) 2016 in France, under the sponsorship of NAE.









"Mecal – Barcelona International Short and Animation Film Festival (MECAL PRO 2017) marks its 19th edition this year. The selected works for the festival were from over 40 countries. Just like other short film festivals in western countries, only a few of them were from Asian countries. It was my pleasure to show my work to people from all over the world. The screening venue of this festival is very special. It took place in a historic building. I found that the venue for screenings affects the audiences’ expectation for the short films they are to watch.


For example, the audiences would not expect to watch some entertaining works in a historic building. At MECAL PRO 2017, I could see that the audiences were rather open to different cultures and cinematic styles."


—Shared by Ho Chun-yu Nic, director of Behind the Schoolbag, after attending the 19th MECAL International Short Film Festival of Barcelona.