Yesterday was the opening and prize giving ceremony of the cartoon contest of Olen in Belgium.
A delegation of the ECC was there to be part of this festive edition: 25 years all ready since some illuminated minds had the idea to start a cartoon festival in Olen. After a few of the local Keizer Karel beers, the idea seemed so great, that Cois Veldeman and Paul Cerstiaens with a few others started the first contest in 1988. Since then the contest of Olen has become an international competition.
This years edition with the subject ‘Clear surface water’ and the Amnesty International Theme: ‘the right for a bed and some food’ could count on 353 participating cartoonists from 54 different countries. The jury chose 140 works for the exhibition and 7 prize winners.
The winners were announced by the amazing Riet Smits, alder(wo)man of Culture of the city of Olen, with her you don’t have to spent any money on a performance act:
– 1st prize was for Pavel Kuczynski of Poland
– 2nd prize: Robert Rousso (France)
– 3rd prize: Kfir Weizman (Israel)
– 4th prize: Grigori Katz (Israel)
– 5th prize: Raed Khalil (Syria)
The Amnesty International Prize was for the Italian Marco De Angelis and the Polish Izabela Kowalska-Wieczorek won the prize of the city of Bialogard.
Typical for Olen is also the Youth Cartoon Contest that are for children and youngsters under the age of 15. The winner was the Chinese Zhang A He (who also did win the 3rd prize), second was the Turkish Ekin Ozeskici and Li Yu Xuan did win the 4th prize in the youth category.
For the first time the cartoonists could send their works in a digital way – and even if some difficulties did occur – the organizers did decide that the next edition will be ‘digital only’. So you still have some time but nevertheless we like to give you the theme for the edition 2014: ‘cows’! And the Amnesty theme: ‘Right on education’.
I really want to thank the organizers for their years of hard work, it is not so easy to organize year after year and that for more than 25 years an international cartoon contest, searching for sponsorship, administration, producing an excellent catalogue, … And offering all these guests and cartoonists a tasty reception with Keizer Karel beer of course!
Cartoonists present: Pavel Kuczynski, Marco De Angelis, Lejon, Herbert Vanostaijen, Patrick Heymans, Danny Maes, Rudy Thijs, Norbert Van Yperzeele, Ronald Van Ostaijen, Cois Veldeman …