LONDON: The Horse Hospital

Friday 3rd December, 2021

7:45pm

Event information

Independent animation is an art form that continues to thrive and develop as a breathtaking medley of styles, materials, techniques and production – from hand-drawn, paint on glass, collage, sculpture, cut-outs, puppets, abstract to some of the more interesting developments in CGI – all of which can be seen at this year’s London International Animation Festival over 10 days from 26 November to 5 December.

This programme is dedicated to one of Japan’s most exciting young animators. Born in 1980, Atsushi Wada started making his self-produced animated films in 2002 after studying at Tokyo University of the Arts. He has now made 15 short films which have screened at numerous festivals worldwide and been awarded several times over, including the ‘Silver Bear’ Award at the Berlin International Film Festival for ‘The Great Rabbit’.

These films, beautifully rendered in fine pencil-line drawings with understated splashes of colour, are more than just animated stories – watching them you can literally feel movement and experience sudden but subtle emotional jolts to the subconscious. Atsushi is very interested in the Japanese traditional concept called “Ma”, the tension produced between movements. These minimalist films, influenced by Noh Theatre, music and dance, shine a light on strange worlds and take a sideways look at human relationships with humans and human relationships with animals using only what is essential – nothing is superfluous.

LIAF is very proud to present a comprehensive retrospective of one of Japan’s most singular, fascinating and independent animators.

This is the first of two programmes tonight, The Trippy Worlds of Indie Japanese Animation programme screens afterwards at 9:30pm. You can buy tickets for both screenings for just £14/£10 + booking fee.

For full programme information please visit the LIAF website at www.liaf.org.uk