Happy Machine
Reality is not all it seems in this journey into an alternative existence filled with bizarre creatures.
16'
Japan
IFFR 2023
Yuasa Masaaki's 2013 short action anime is a fast and furious love story between a masochistic male wrestler and a deceptively demure nun. With minimal dialogue, the swirling, surreal action moves between the ring and an orphanage as the hero helps the children while battling a mysterious, sadistic opponent. Kick-Heart is the first successful film from a major anime studio to be crowdfunded, heralding a new wave of pioneering projects in Japan.
– Justine Maybank
IFFR 2023
- 13'
- Japan
- 2013
- Director
- Yuasa Masaaki
- Country of production
- Japan
- Year
- 2013
- Festival Edition
- IFFR 2023
- Length
- 13'
- Medium
- DCP
- Original title
- Kikkuhāto
- Language
- Japanese
- Producers
- Terakawa Hidekazu, Justin Leach
- Production Company
- Production I.G
- Sales
- Production I.G
- Screenplay
- Yuasa Masaaki
- Cinematography
- Tanaka Koji
- Editor
- Hamauzu Taeko
- Production Design
- Mihara Michio
- Sound Design
- Koizumi Kisuke
- Music
- OORUTAICHI
- Cast
- Suzuki Tatsuhisa, Honda Takako, Takagi Wataru, Nitta Makiko
- Director
- Yuasa Masaaki
- Country of production
- Japan
- Year
- 2013
- Festival Edition
- IFFR 2023
- Length
- 13'
- Medium
- DCP
- Original title
- Kikkuhāto
- Language
- Japanese
- Producers
- Terakawa Hidekazu, Justin Leach
- Production Company
- Production I.G
- Sales
- Production I.G
- Screenplay
- Yuasa Masaaki
- Cinematography
- Tanaka Koji
- Editor
- Hamauzu Taeko
- Production Design
- Mihara Michio
- Sound Design
- Koizumi Kisuke
- Music
- OORUTAICHI
- Cast
- Suzuki Tatsuhisa, Honda Takako, Takagi Wataru, Nitta Makiko
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 programmeINU-OH
Set in medieval Japan, dissident musicians take on tradition in a counterculture manifesto with a contemporary feel.
98'
Japan
IFFR 2023
Japan Sinks: 2020 Theatrical Edition
A teenage athlete grapples with guilt and loss in this intimate, tonally complex disaster epic.
151'
Japan
IFFR 2023