Korean director Erick Oh’s “Opera” has been nominated to compete for the title of best short film in the Annecy International Animated Film Festival this year.

The nine-minute-long unconventional animated film, which won Oh the Minister’s Award at the 2020 Korea Contents Awards, is an 8K-resolution, massive animation installation piece that reflects on life, society and history.

Oh’s film was the only Asian short animation and the only nonnarrative form animation to be nominated for the recent Oscars.

This is not Oh’s first film to be screened at the festival in Annecy, France. In 2018, his “Pig: The Dam Keeper Poems” won the Cristal Award in the TV series category at the 42nd Annecy International Animated Film Festival.

According to the Annecy International Animation Film Festival, it has received over 2,700 short films, graduation films, and TV and commissioned films from almost 100 countries this year.

Created in 1960, the animated film fest that takes place at the beginning of June is considered one of the big four international animated film festivals along with the Ottawa International Animated Film Festival in Canada, the Hiroshima International Animation Festival in Japan, and the Zagreb World Festival of Animated Films in Croatia.

The initially biennial event has been held annually since 1998.

Annecy International Animated Film Festival 2021will be a hybrid event -- a combination of in-person events with virtual components -- this year due to the spread of COVID-19.

By Song Seung-hyun (ssh@heraldcorp.com)