Ankara’s Cartoon festival opens

PARIS - Agence France-Presse

The 19th Ankara Cartoon Festival opens today and will include many cartoons made by children. The festival will be held within the program of an April 23 Children’s Festival. Speaking at the press conference, Nezih Danyal said they organized this event with the motto “If a child smiles, the whole world smiles.”

Danyal added that children were very wise when they gave messages with cartoons. There will be total of 871 cartoons in the 7-17 section of the festival and in the 7-77 section of the festival, which is dedicated to adults, there will be 913 cartoons. There will be also eight different cartoon exhibitions at the festival. Children will be attending cartoon ateliers and workshops. This year an exclusive workshop will be held to discuss the effects of computer games on children, Danyal said. The festival starts with an exhibition. The festival will be hosting Cartoonist Founders Federation (FECO) president Peter Nieuwendijk; the federation’s Japan president, Yoshiaki Yokota; and federation’s president in France, Robert Rousso. The festival will also host cartoon artists such as Erdoğan Karayel, Semih Poroy, Alicja Bednarek and Valentin Georgiev.

The events will take place in the Painting and Sculpture Museum and the Turkish English Culture Foundation exhibition hall. The festival continues until April 21.