History of the Iida Puppet Festa Puppetry Carnival Iida started in the International Year of the Child (1979). Those who love puppet shows, professionals or amateurs, all over Japan assembled in Iida City called the treasury of Japanese traditional narrative puppet shows and traditional performing arts. The events well suited to a carnival, such as city parades by puppeteers and puppet displays in store windows, have come to be held one after another, and more and more groups have come to participate in the carnival every year. And in 1986, puppeteers in Asia assembled and held the first large-scale international puppet festival, UNIMA (Union Internationale de la Marionette) Asian Conference. We held the World Puppetry Festival in 1988 when we celebrated the 10th anniversary of the carnival as well. A puppetry hall was opened and a friendship city agreement with Charleville Mezieres City in France, where the headquarters of UNIMA is, was concluded, making Iida City an international exchange city. With the 40th Anniversary Commendation of the UNESCO Association in Japan in 1987 as a start, we came to win various awards one after another for the carnival. In 1988, we won the ExxonMobil Children's Culture Award and the Suntory Regional Culture Award in succession, and in fall of the same year, the Director-General's Award of the National Land Agency that honors distinguished city-building from among the local governments throughout the country. We came to receive high acclaims for the festival with the unification of puppeteers and citizens, as seen in having received the commendation of the Nagano Prefectural Governor the next year, and the Japan Foundation Regional Exchange Promotion Award in 1992. Thus, Iida City has come to be loved by many puppeteers as the "city of puppet shows, Iida" internationally as well. At the 15th carnival, we built a monument to represent the appreciation we have for puppet show groups and puppeteers and everlasting friendship. In 1998, we held the World Puppetry Festival by Iida City alone, commemorating the 20th anniversary of the carnival. Puppet show groups with excellent performances participated in this festival as a result of selection by puppeteers and the citizens of Iida City. The Puppetry Carnival has developed from a festival where a lot of puppeteers throughout the country assemble into a festival where highly artistic puppet shows gather together. It is said that there were three factors that had developed and kept the Puppetry Carnival going: the first was that there was a historical background of competing in the events at the time of the inauguration, that is, it conformed to the fashion of the times; the second was that the disposition of the people in the Ina Valley who care for dramatic entertainment tied in well with the geographically-distributed administrative organization; and the third was that the intentions of puppeteers, citizens who wished for distinguished culture for their children, and the administration that tried to realize their wish, were in total accord. Pictures in descriptions (1) Kuroda traditional puppet (2) World Puppetry Festival '88 Iida (3) National aquatic puppet show group in Vietnam (4) Ai-park monument (5) Puppet Theater PUK (6) Jocco Vita (Italy)