Presented by Richmond Cultural Centre and Cinevolution Media Arts Society, the last Monthly Film Series of the year in November is a feast of animation and a celebration of Japanese Canadian animators.
The first part of the program is a collection of works by Japanese Canadian filmmakers, featuring more than seven titles produced in the past twenty years, including veteran filmmaker Michael Fukushima’s animated documentary Minoru: Memory of Exile (1992), Alison Reiko Loader’s two shorts, Showa Shinzan (2002) and Roots (2006), award-winning director Jeff Chiba Stearns’s What Are You Anyway? (2005), Yellow Sticky Notes (2007), award-winning director Randall Okita’s Machine with Wishbone (2007), and Japanese Canadian visual artist Cindy Mochizuki’s mini-animation series.
The styles and techniques of these works are as diverse as the themes. Michael’s Minoru is a touching family story artfully combining classical animation with archival photos and texts; Alison’s Showa Shinzan is a story of nature’s destructive beauty based on actual events and created by 3-D computer and drawings; entirely hand drawn and amazingly beautiful, Jeff’s two shorts are self-reflections of his life as a mix of Japanese and Caucasian and an artist; Randall’s new work Machine with Wishbone is a dreamscape of mechanical oddities, an one-of-a-kind creative combination of kinetic sculpture and boundless imagination shot without special effects; visual artist Cindy’s mini series will present the audience with an alternative way to see and understand animation as a form of art. All the films are in English.
The second part of the evening will be screening an internationally acclaimed masterpiece from Japan, Mushi-Shi. Adapted from Manga into an animated television series by Japanese filmmaker Hiroshi Nagahama in 2005, this film explores Japanese mysticism and its impact on the characters’ lives, and has won critical award and commercial success all over the world. The two episodes we will show are in Japanese with English subtitles.
This event is sponsored by National Film Board of Canada and Anime Evolution, Vancouver’s biggest Japanese animation association. We have also invited guest filmmakers and speakers. Jeff Chiba Stearns will drive from Kelowna specifically for this event. He will join Vancouver-based filmmaker Randall Okita to talk with the audience and show some storyboard, drawings, sculptures, telling the behind-the-scene stories of how to create an animation. Mr. Edmund Yee, the communication director from Anime Evolution, will give an overview introduction of Japanese animation at the beginning of the second program.
This event is the first of this kind in Richmond. It will give local audiences a rare opportunity to learn about local Japanese Canadian filmmakers and their works, as well as understand animation as a form of cinematic art.
