The future of next year's Filmfest Stuttgart-Ludwigsburg looks uncertain after comments by Gabriele Roethemeyer, chief executive of the MFG Baden-Wuerttemberg fund and managing director of the festival's organising body.

Speaking to the local newspaper Stuttgarter Zeitung on the eve of this week's International Animation Film Festival, Roethemeyer said that she wouldn't "be unhappy if it came so far" if the Filmfest did not take place in July 2005.

Admissions for the 2003 edition were below expectations and the previous festival management had been dismissed after amassing financial debts.

Roethemeyer suggested that the animation festival, which is regarded as the second largest event of its kind in the world and the leading animation festival in Germany, should be held annually in future instead of alternating with the Filmfest Stuttgart-Ludwigsburg.