[GLOBAL ECONOMIC TIMES]  The 7th Seoul Animal Film Festival (SAFF), which shed new light on animal rights and non-human beings, has come to an end.

The 7th Seoul Animal Film Festival opened on the 17th under the slogan 'Live to the best of your ability', which views all animals as active agents of life, and ran for 4 days at Megabox Hongdae in Seoul, and for 7 days at the online theater 'Purplay' for online screenings. Welcoming an audience of about 5,000 people. 55 long and short films from 24 countries met with audiences.

The closing ceremony began with closing greetings from the film festival executive committee at Megabox Hongdae in Seoul on the 20th.

Executive Committee Member Shin Eun-sil said, “We cannot change the world right away through movies, but we want to share with the audience the gift of ‘restoration of a common sense’ by staying awake together and thinking together about what to do.”

At the short film competition awards ceremony, Dutch director Sebastian Mülder’s ‘Happy New Year’ was selected as the winner of the ‘SAFF Audience Award’. This film is about the pain that animals experience due to the smoke and noise from fireworks that take place around the world.

Director Mülder said, “I had no idea that there were so many wonderful people in Seoul who kill animals and that they would like our film. “Please don’t stop making and watching movies for non-human beings.”

Director Yoo Ha-na’s ‘Anatomy Lesson Chapter 2’ was up for the grand prize, the ‘SAFF Best Picture Award’. This film is an experimental film that explores the dissonance and violence that arises from the incongruity of context by weaving together the reminiscences and perspectives of three people who experienced a frog dissection experiment in science class as children.

The short story competition jury said, “I was surprised by the attempts to go beyond showing the reality of animals and radically reconstruct the world and history around animals,” adding, “As there were many beautiful and interesting works, the best picture award was decided after heated discussions.” He said.

Director Yoo Hana said, “I hope that the film will serve as an opportunity to think again about how behavior and normative education that were taken for granted in the past are viewed today, and if so, what the current norms are.”

Among the works that competed with the award winner, director Hugo Petronin's 'Fluid Nymph', Johannes Foerster, and director Elkin Calderón Guevara's 'About Happy Hippos and Sad Peacocks' were recorded as special mentions.

In the SAFF Citizen Video Contest category, Beombeom’s Shin Dong-moon jointly won the ‘SAFF Change Award’ and director Song Jin-kyung won the ‘SAFF Coexistence Award’. The award was given by director Akari Soma.

After the closing declaration shouted together by 24 film festival volunteers, the closing film ‘Every Little Thing’ was screened and the 7th Seoul Animal Film Festival came to an end.

A KARA official said, “We would like to thank all those who added strength through hospitality and solidarity to create the 7th Seoul Animal Film Festival together, the filmmakers who created good works in the world, and the audience who completed the film festival,” and added, “The films screened at the film festival. “I hope that our meeting at the film festival will leave us all with the strength to live well in the world,” he said.