Happy Machine

  • 16'
  • Japan
  • 2007

Reality is not all it seems in this surreal short from experimental visionary Yuasa Masaaki, where a baby’s world of safety and security is turned on its head. Part of Studio 4°C’s 2007 Genius Party collection, the journey into an alternative existence filled with bizarre creatures forms part of a series of seven short animations by filmmakers, each with their own distinct style.

 

Justine Maybank

Director
Yuasa Masaaki
Country of production
Japan
Year
2007
Festival Edition
IFFR 2023
Length
16'
Medium
35mm
Original title
Yumemiru kikai
Language
no dialogue
Producer
Tanaka Eiko
Production Company
Beyond C.
Sales
Studio 4°C
Screenplay
Yuasa Masaaki
Production Design
Katsui Kazuko
Music
Nobukazu Takemura
Cast
Mizuhara Kaoru
Director
Yuasa Masaaki
Country of production
Japan
Year
2007
Festival Edition
IFFR 2023
Length
16'
Medium
35mm
Original title
Yumemiru kikai
Language
no dialogue
Producer
Tanaka Eiko
Production Company
Beyond C.
Sales
Studio 4°C
Screenplay
Yuasa Masaaki
Production Design
Katsui Kazuko
Music
Nobukazu Takemura
Cast
Mizuhara Kaoru

Programme IFFR 2023

Focus: Yuasa Masaaki

When, at IFFR 2018, Yuasa Masaaki's Night Is Short, Walk On Girl screened, audiences and critics alike went wild with delight and wonder. Now, apropos his latest work, INU-OH, IFFR is proud to present the internationally first extensive retrospective of a modern master who, since his first efforts in the 90s as a storyboard artist and episode director, developed into one of world cinema's most inventive and constantly surprising animation auteurs. 

Recurring topics of transformation, self-expression, and love are exemplary of Yuasa's oeuvre – complemented with an animation style that characteristically favours  movement and emotions that  feel both authentic and real. In series like The Tatami Galaxy (2010) or Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! (2020), as well as films like Lu Over the Wall (2017) or Ride Your Wave (2019), Yuasa's filmmaking combines the surreal with the cute, the socially conscious with flights of fancy, the visually staggeringly experimental with the narratively classical. IFFR is proud to celebrate a creative mind that, like few others, knows how to fuse the popular with the avant-garde.

Read more about this programme