American cartoon giant Walt Disney Co. is on the hunt for original cartoon scripts in China, and what better place to look than the 2005 China International Cartoon Digital Art Week that opened in Changzhou City, in eastern China's Jiangsu Province on Wednesday.

Key events of the festival include the China International Cartoon Competition and Awards Ceremony; screenings of Chinese and international cartoon feature films; the China International Cartoon Industry and Cartoon Art Forum; and the China International Cartoon Product Market.

A hundred scripts are vying for the festival's top prize of a US$100,000 production sponsorship. Organizers of the festival said that Disney, as one of the co-organizers of the event, will select the winner.

Disney has contracted to invest US$100,000 per 22-minute episode of the winning script, which will be jointly produced by Chinese and Korean cartoon makers.

The judging panel includes the chairman of the International Cartoon Association Noureddin Zarrinekelk, and cartoon designers from France, Canada, ROK, the United States and Italy.

The festival also showcases cartoon and flash animation art works from 23 countries.

China has a large group of cartoon designing talents and abundant art and literary resources for cartoon production. The country's burgeoning cartoon industry earned 8 billion yuan (US$1 billion) in revenue in 2004.

The festival, sponsored and supported by the Ministry of Culture, ends on October 5.

(Xinhua News Agency September 29, 2005)