Legendary Japanese anime director Kōji Morimoto is coming to Animest.19

Special Guest Kōji Morimoto, known for his unique gritty yet refined style, is coming to Romania for the 19th edition of the Animest International Animation Festival (October 4-13, 2024) – and you can meet him! Join his free-entry masterclass and learn all about his creative process and four-decade career on Sunday, October 6 at 4 PM, at the Cervantes Institute (38 Regina Elisabeta Blvd., Bucharest).

To celebrate his trailblazing career, Animest will screen some of Morimoto’s works on October 6 as well. Check out the teaser trailer for the day: 

Born at the tailend of the 1950’s, Kōji Morimoto started his career just as Japanese manga and anime were taking the world by storm. Inspired by “The Father of Anime” Osamu Tezuka’s pioneering work, Morimoto nurtured his childhood passion for drawing and graduated college in 1979, joining a studio to work as an animator for a popular TV series, Tomorrow’s Joe. In a few years, he’d gone freelance, co-founded a studio, and joined Katsuhiro Otomo’s Akira, which revolutionized animation – and the way people saw Japanese anime – when it was released in 1988. Otomo invited Morimoto to also collaborate on the Neo-Tokyo and Robot Carnival anthologies, where Morimoto debuted as a director with the 1987 short film Franken’s Gears.

Akira was a chance for Morimoto to work alongside the most talented animators in Japan, as they brought to life Otomo’s vision of a dystopian Tokyo. The story takes place in 2019, in an alternate universe where authoritarian police and rampant corruption wreak havoc, and is illustrated in a cyberpunk visual style. Echoing post-war depression in Japan, the film definitely proves that animation is not just for kids. 

Morimoto founded STUDIO4°C alongside Eiko Tanaka, Studio Ghibli producer on films such as My Neighbor Totoro, both motivated to make creative avant-garde films. Morimoto came into his directorial style with works such as 1995’s Magnetic Rose, in which two astronauts investigating a distress signal end up on an abandoned space station haunted by a once-famous opera singer’s twisted AI-powered memories, the revolutionary music video for electro-techno DJ Ken Ishii’s EXTRA, winner of MTV’s Dance Video of The Year (1996), and The ANIMATRIX: Beyond (2003), an episode in the animated spin-off of The Matrix.  

On October 6, watch two of Kōji Morimoto’s most famous short films: from 9 PM at Eforie Cinematheque, Noiseman Sound Insect (1997), praised for the experimental narrative structure, tells the tale of a world of music and musical plants where a mad scientist creates a child, Noiseman, then loses control of him to disastrous results. Actually, come by earlier, to catch the 7 PM showing of Genius Party Beyond (2008), a five-film omnibus produced by STUDIO4°C which includes Morimoto’s own Dimension Bomb, a journey through the thoughts and feelings of a young boy in a strange hood and helmet who meets and befriends an eccentric girl… in another dimension. Both screenings will happen in the presence of the director, so stay for the Q&A segments at the end.

Kōji Morimoto is an indelible part of Japanese anime, which he has helped mold through his style, technique, narrative structure, and themes combining the traditional and modern in a refined, recognizable manner. His visit to Romania as part of Animest.19 is a unique opportunity for all our anime-loving audiences to meet this anime genius!

Watch out for the full Animest.19 schedule and tickets soon, on the Eventbook platform.

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The Animest Festival is a project of the Animest Association, co-financed by the MEDIA Program of the European Union and AFCN–the Administration of the National Cultural Fund.

Institutional Partners: the Romanian Cultural Institute, The French Institute and the Embassy of France in Romania, Instituto Cervantes, the Italian Cultural Institute, The Austrian Cultural Forum, Liszt Institute – The Hungarian Cultural Center, The Czech Center, UNATC – The “I.L. Caragiale” National University of Theater and Film, the Animation Festival Network (AFN)
Partners: Groupama, Ogilvy
Minimest Partner: ASAP Romania
Main Media Partners: VOYO, PRO TV 
As Heard On: Radio Guerrilla
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