Acknowledgments
Anime Film Series
Andalussian Film Institute, November 5th and 6th, 20:30pm
Anime SessionOshii, Kon and Kawajiri: three key names in Anime at Animacor'07
Japanese animated film has managed to shape a period of some most attractive artistic work in the world. But like everything from Japan, this is not a new art form that dropped out the sky. The opposite in fact. Its roots run very deep and are steeped in tradition. It is the same tradition that came to the aide of Western painting in the form of humble prints, ukiyo-e, which with its unconcern for recreating what is real, marked the exit route for Art when realistic painting thought that the end of the world was coming with the invention of photography.
Practically two thirds of the Spanish population, those under 60 years old, knows something about Anime. From the times of Heidi and Mazinga, everyone has grown up with those stories and has internalized their songs. Now a large majority of the younger generations play and live with their creations both through the cinema and television as well as through video games.
And that’s not all. The Centers of Contemporary Art worldwide host work inspired directly or indirectly by Anime, and Anime soaks up and shapes the imagination of the 21st century.
If we made all of Anime’s contributions disappear from the world, we would find an enormous void full of painful losses.
For cinema, the success of Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away was crucial. Not many understood how a cartoon could win the Golden Bear Award of Berlin, or how filmmakers such as Katsuhiro Otomo, Mamoru Oshii and Satoshi Kon could compete at Cannes as master directors alongside those working with live actors. But it is work such as Akira and Ghost in the Shell that has shaped present day science fiction; it influences and is imitated by filmmakers such stellar directors as Spielberg, and has been recreated in such legendary films as Matrix in the USA and The Fifth Element in Europe.
This year the Animacor Festival, aware of the monumental contribution that Anime makes within the world of animation, is offering a series with three of its most relevant figures: Mamoru Oshii, Satoshi Kon and Yoshiaki Kawajiri. These are three of the most significant and interesting filmmakers, each with his unique style. The gathering of their work will make it possible to get a closer look at the complexity and richness that comes together in some of the most beautiful and profound films in contemporary society.
The series will hold screenings of four full-length films and two conferences. Two of Mamoru Oshii’s amazing films will be screened, the now legendary Ghost in the Shell, and Innocence, a second part that behaves as such, that is, not as a sequel but rather as a surprising evolution in his reflection on reality and memory.
We will present Satoshi Kon’s latest film, Paprika, a dense and multifaceted film in which the manipulation of the human mind and the possibility of controlling dreams is accompanied by the style of the director of such brilliant films as Perfect Blue, Tokyo Godfathers and Millennium Actress.
While Oshii moves in the territory of the future and Kon seems focused on the present, Kawajiri, the maker of such striking films as Ninja Scroll and Vampire Hunter D, enjoys recreating an epic world of katanas and adventure. His latest film, Highlander –previously unreleased in Spain–, is inspired by The Immortals and can be seen in Córdoba as the culmination of this intense overview of the world of Anime; that is, one of the most gratifying refuges in which it is still possible to find passion and talent applied to the old art of filmmaking and storytelling.
Blanca Oria y Juan Zapater
Series Organizers
Proyections:
