Alternative Anime: The Next Generation
We haven’t done this for a couple of years, but here’s another of our anthologies of outstanding animated shorts from East Asia. It’s led off by seven titles from Japan, and will include choice examples (not yet finalized at the time of going to press) from Korea and China. These are the confirmed titles to date; the final list and the running order will be posted at the screenings.
— Tony Rayns
Films in Program
A history-in-reverse: the receding life of a man, coloured by a tsunami which hit four-and-a-bit years ago.
A boy keeping a diary at school becomes convinced that he’s being brainwashed at a facility to create "supersoldiers;" he’s haunted by his missing classmate Charisma. The director (born in Hokkaido) considers herself a “teenager for life.”
A hot-spring dream. What happens if you lose your head while reaching to remove your sock?
The bridge as the channel between worlds: between the living and the dead, between male and female, between sacred and profane.
An Escher-like metaphor for introspection: a woman and her reflection in a forest pool, plus moths.
A seaside town shrouded in darkness, which blankets lights, roads home… and a pregnant woman.
Atom is wave, wave is signal. Uncertainty.
A spectacular animated version (in a brilliant combination of flash plus thangka) of an Eastern Tibetan folk tale: when a hunter meets a fearsome skeleton monster, are they friends or enemies?