Lee Unkrich, US director of Oscar-winning animation film Coco. [Photo provided to China Daily]

More than 80 broadcasters and distributors, as well as around 1,500 companies with nearly 170 franchises of animated productions or games, have submitted to join the festival's trade market.

Such franchises include French video game publisher Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed, which fictionalizes the rivalry between two ancient secret societies, and The King's Avatar, a popular Chinese online comic series about a group of genius game players.

A summit will also be held to discuss how to build the brand of an influential animation event, gathering together the heads of more than 10 top animation festivals, such as the Annecy International Animated Film Festival in France, and the Ottawa International Animation Festival.

Coinciding with the Xiajiang village event on March 24, the China Comic and Animation Museum in Hangzhou has unveiled its collection of historical animation and cartoon pieces gathered from all around the world toward the end of the festival.

So far, the 30,000-square-meter museum nestled in Baima Lake Animation Square, the main venue for the festival, has received more than 1,600 display submissions, including a monkey-themed painting by the pioneering animator Wan Laiming, the set drafts of 1937 Disney movie Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and some celluloid sheets of the iconic Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck animated series produced in the 1950s.