Lucca Animation isn't the first Animation Festival to be held in Lucca.

Since 1967, Lucca has been home to the most important Italian exhibition dedicated to Cartooning. Today the festival, having undergone various transformations over the years, is known as Lucca Comics & Games.

Until the mid 1980's, animation was an integral part of that exhibition. Lucca was the first Italian showcase for animation not satisfied with its niche as a children's T.V. product, animation that sought to go beyond its perceived limitations. This was animation as an art form. The work shown in Lucca has influenced entire generations of Italian authors.

Lucca Animation now takes up and consolidates that tradition.

We are living in the age of the Image. Today, more than ever before, anything and everything is possible as far as imagery is concerned. All forms of manipulation are permissible; every expressive possibility is available at our fingertips. Animation is itself the symbol of the complete malleability of imagery, a suitable cipher for our times.

Animation is everywhere: on our cinema and television screens, home computers, Internet and even our mobile phones. The ever-expanding videogame universe is nothing other than interactive animation. Animation, the creation of images protracted in space and time, is the art form of our century.

With this in mind, Lucca Animation aims to be a young, dynamic festival, with its finger on the pulse of all things contemporary in this field.

Lucca Animation is a competitive festival. Each year, the international competition will exhibit the best productions from all over the world and will give us the opportunity to reflect on the current state of this art form.

Alongside the competition, special programmes will be dedicated to specific themes.