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Anime Mirai 2012 Wins Seoul Int'l Cartoon & Animation Fest Grand Prize
posted on by Crystalyn Hodgkins
Anime studio Production I.G revealed on Thursday that the 2012 Anime Mirai showcase won the Grand Prize in the Feature Films category of the 17th Seoul International Cartoon & Animation Festival (SICAF 2013).
The 2012 Anime Mirai project featured four segments: The Answer Studio and Hiroshi Kawamata's "Juju the Weightless Dugong (Puka Puka Juju)," Shirogumi and Shinpei Miyashita's "Pretending Not to See (Shiranpuri)," Production I.G and Toshihisa Kaiya's "Li'l Spider Girl (Wasurenagumo)" and Telecom Animation Film and Kazuhide Tomonaga's "BUTA" shorts.
SICAF 2013 judge Shelden Cohen wrote of the works that "The Highly impressive quality of animation and graphic excellence combined with down-to-earth thoughtful storytelling made this feature rise to the top. It expresses contemporary life as seen through eyes of a child engaging viewers to consider the vulnerabilities of childhood, and how personal growth can prevail. It's a rich, entertaining body of work that deserves to be recognized."
Under the Anime Mirai program, the Japan Animation Creators Association (JAniCA) receives money from the Japanese government's Agency for Cultural Affairs, and it distributes most of those funds to studios who will train young animators on-the-job. Otakon is hosting a screening event of all of the Anime Mirai showcases during the August 9-11 weekend.
Additionally, Takuya Inaba's "Golden Time" short won the Audience Choice award in the Short Films category, and also won the Inspiration of Asia award in the Special Competition category. Cohen said of the short, "This is a Golden Film! It's perfect on every level. It exemplifies the essence of the animated art form, personifying inanimate unanimated objects with humour, intelligence tenderness. It never lets the audience down even to the very last frame where we see the true inspiration that sparked the filmmaker's imagination. A triple bravo from all 3 judges."
The festival was held between July 24-28, and the organizers had selected 152 works to screen at the festival from 1,225 original entries from 53 countries. Among the other works selected to screen in competition at the festival were Yoriko Mizushiri's "Futon" short, and Yūtarō Kubo's "Crazy for It" and Saki Muramoto's "It's Time For Supper" shorts, the latter two of which ran in the Student Film category. Works that screened out of competition included Naoko Yamada's K-ON! film, Michiya Katō's "Obake no Dokuro" short, and Tsuneo Goda's "Komaneko no Orusuban" short.
