Programme October 2020

The King of Amechau Country 〜Mother Goose〜
Miho Yata

World Premiere
Born 1974. Studied Children’s literature and children’s culture at university. While studying she was inspired by ‘Wallace and Gromit’ and started to have an interest in stop-motion animation. In 1999, she started creating Knit-animation and picture books.

Lecture at Shirayuri University Department of Children’s Culture／Member of Japan Animation Association
Website

Dreams
Chie Arai

What do horses dream about? Drawing animation with an embroidery look, this film is created like a picture book.

A graduate from the Department of Fine Arts, Northern Arizona University, after working at an animation studio, Arai has worked as a freelancer since 2002. Her techniques include hand drawn animation and illustration and she creates books and animation videos including Dreams (2008). Since 2006, she has been orchestrating and exhibiting the “Flip Book Manga Cafe Exhibition”, a collective of writers and artists who love to make wonderfully varied flip books. As well as creating her own art, she guides others and works as an associate professor at Bunka Gakuen University Department of Art and Design.
Website

Deep Sea’s Rainbow
Makiko Sukikara

UK Premiere

The idea is a myth of the deep-sea. A sperm whale swallows the sun and swims toward the deep-sea. A giant squid inherits the sunshine.
Thousands of squid babies are born like shining stars. Love beyond Species in the deep-sea. A rainbow appears in a moonlit night. A giant squid finishes laying eggs and bids farewell to her own life. A sperm whale feels the rhythm of the universe with the sun as usual.

Makiko Sukikara works as an animator. She studied at the summer school in Film School Zlin in the Czech Republic. Since 2010, she has been animating and has created animation works by the multiplane camera, many of which have been screened at international festivals. She creates stories with animals as the main characters with titles like While the Crow Weeps (2013) and Deep Sea’s Rainbow (2019), the latter programmed for Kotatsu’s forthcoming stream.
Website

Waltz
Mari Miyazawa

UK Premiere

Even among mankind, age, tastes and appearances, can lead to groups and opposition. But people can exist in multiple groups at the same time, and their situation can change many times even within a single day. These movements are light and easy, like dancing a waltz. Set in a world where different food types are in conflict, a sausage named Nine, works together with his friend Ravi, a raviolo, to try and bring about harmony.

Mari Miyazawa is a bento artist and animator who has combined her food decorating skills with animation to make unique films. This desire to meld the two disciplines started when she wanted to see her characters move and so joined the Tokyo National University of Arts Graduate School where she studied under Yuichi Ito. Since graduating in 2014, Mari’s films have played at various festivals including the prestigious Ottawa International Animation Festival where her film Konigiri-Kun Orugoru (2017) won the Award for Best Animation for Young Audiences.
Website

Tashika’s Strange Adventure
Airi Sato & Sakamoto Nao

At one point, Tashika finds himself “repeating” before he knows. From that awareness, a mysterious adventure around him that exists in various forms begins. What is Tashika’s answer to know the fact that he is in the adventure and finish “repeat”?

Tiny World
Yuri Matsumoto

This is a work that looks a little at such a small world. However, the things that are placed there actually have their own lives and may have various feelings. Many stories may have been born and gone.

It Is Love
Akiho Shimizu

A love story for parents and children that expresses the importance of communicating love.

Too Bee Continued
Aki Ezure

The girl lived on a vinyl-covered ship, a little away from the bees and the people who live there. One day, the bees make a fuss about something. The joy and stress of connecting with people that I felt in my daily life was made with a positive feeling. Please leave difficult things and enjoy them as entertainment.

Radio Town
Keiko Matsuda

I know you want an explanation, I understand. sorry.

The Girl
Hana Ozeki

A girl who lives in a big mysterious town that seems to be a natural phenomenon and it may be an ordinary hallucination. The parts of the life which seem related yet not related, which are girlhood and the shade was drawn.

A Walrus of Handshake Event
Katomomo

I made this animation with seven different male and female characters, dubbing each with my own voice; Pigeon, Tortoise, Unicorn, Crocodile, etc. A panic is going to happen again today. Tragedy will fall upon their friend the Tortoise. The other three characters try to help him, but they will also get involved in it. What will be their fate?

Mubi
Tomoe Obayashii

This animation thematizes dreams that you can’t wake up from. In Japanese, “mubi(夢寐)” means the dreams you have whilst asleep. “Shakuya mubi(夙夜夢寐)” is a four character idiom meaning dreams you have whether you are asleep or awake. He has conflict, rapture and anguish, and he will know as to why he cannot leave his dream.

Happy Zoo
Zhijie Wang

In this zoo, the environment is actually reproduced by holographic projection technology, while animals live there comfortably as if in nature. However, when it is closed down and the projector is turned off, the vivid world fades till the animals are left in an empty room. We cannot tell whether animals can become aware of the absence of the environment.

People at 3pm
Yuwei Wang

Jumping out of the perspective of each individual, everyone is the “protagonist” of his or her own life. However, all these “protagonists” come together and become our real life — a world full of variety but without protagonist. By asking “If you have an alter ego, what do you think it would do at 3 this afternoon?” to more than 30 interviewees, I selected 3 of the most interesting answers, which are from 50s, 60s, 70s, to be the base of this imaginative narrative.

Yurayura Ki
Asami Tatsumoto

Everything keeps changing. Nothing lasts forever. For example, neither sadness nor happiness are controlled. This animation is a girl in unstable world.

Half of an Apple
Zhou Xiaolin

On a boring afternoon in December, Papa Bear washed an apple and cut it in half, giving half to me and half to my twin sister. We all don’t like the apple with a kitchen knife smell.

City of Willden
Lin Junbun

In this animation, I would like to show a beautiful foggy planet, called ‘Willden’. Different from the Earth, in this planet some people are able to control physical things by mind control. The main character is using this power to protect his homeland when the enemy appears…

Touhu, Sorahe
Keimi Tanigaki

Roughly translated as ‘Tofu, Into Space‘, a small tofu longing for the moon, with the desire to meet the moon, we aim for the universe over time.

Magic Hour
Mizuho Tanaka

You can see it, you can’t see it, you can’t see it.

Battleline
Mine Shuri

It’s a story about an ordinary high-school girl going home with twists and turns.

With Me.
Hatsumi Uegai / Arisa Toyoda

A girl who grows up with a changing town. Someday, memories of those days.

TapeA
Izumi Tanimura

People live in their beliefs.

Remind
Kanako Yamakido

Unexpected momentary reminders of my old self.

Umbrella
Haku Uko

The “matchmaking corner” in People’s Square in Shanghai, China is a place where parents meet for their children, and the participants of the matchmaking competition are not the people themselves, but the parents put their child’s information on their umbrellas. It is a place to recommend your child and look for people who look good – like a property. Many of the people who are matched by their parents are women, and they are called “surplus women” in China. Literally, it’s a woman left in the marriage market. I hope you will see the work and feel the conflict in their hearts and the contradiction in the parent-child relationship.
Website

Bad Night
Ding Kaixin

In a quiet, sleepless night, I turned off the lights and tried to sleep, and my eyes were rather clear. Various emotions appear and disappear in front of you by yourself. I animated the emotions of that night.
Twitter

My Imaginary Friends
Mahzoun Maryam

My dad has always enjoyed scribbling and making characters since I was a kid. This time, I made a part of it an animation. Also, it was fun to move characters and give them life by animation, and I wanted to convey this fun with animation and music.
Instagram

Fear
Deng Xiaocao

This work is an animation that the director experienced as a hearing-impaired person.
Tell them that you are anxious, fearful, subservient, and uncertain about your future.
YouTube

Goldfish Grave
Lyu Xinyang

“What do goldfish think in the cold, cold, soil?”
This is a passage from Misuzu Kaneko’s nursery rhyme “Goldfish Tomb”. It’s a poem that makes you feel very lonely. The goldfish that was my only friend. I animated the behaviour and illusions of the owner who lost the goldfish in my own interpretation.
Instagram

Tam’rind
Michelle Anmarie Keane

Tamarind is a stop-motion animation with the theme of racism. In the story, a black girl went to a candy store to buy sweets. However, the candy store did not sell her sweets. Discriminated against, she later built her own candy store. Think about yourself, everyone. Ask yourself, “Am I the candy store or that girl?” What is your answer?
Instagram

Wolves
Moe Ikawa

People wear human skin to live in society, hiding the figure under the skin. There are different ways to hide, and I don’t think it’s easy to live by exposing the true figure. Longing to take off the cramped skin and live as you wish, and anxiety about not being able to return to human society. I wanted to animate the conflicting emotions within me.

Website