A Judge’s Review of the Japan Digital Animation Festival
On June 1 my wife Pat and I flew out to Japan to be a judge in the JDAF, the Japan Digital Animation Festival, in Nagoya, Japan, which ran from June 3-5, 2005.
Nagoya is a picturesque city where the first Shogun Ieyasu Tokugawa was born, although today it is better known as the headquarters of the Toyota Corp. and the center of that uniquely Japanese preoccupation, Pokeno games.
JDAF Nagoya is a competition for 3D student films that has been run every two years since 1999. It is supported by The Nagoya Chamber of Commerce, The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, The NHK Japan Broadcasting Group, the Chunichi Shimbun newspaper and the AnimeExpo of the U.S. among others. A number of prizes were given and the Grand Prize is one million Japanese yen, or about $10,000. Out of 150 entries nineteen were pre-selected to be finalists. Besides Japanese work this year animated films were submitted from France, China, Thailand, Spain and Hungary.
Joining me on this year’s judging panel was famed filmmaker Mamoru Oshii (Patlabor, Jin Roh, Kokaku Kidotai aka Ghost in the Shell). Also part of the panel was producer and Production IG founder Mitsuhisa Ishikawa (Spirited Away, Ghost in the Shell), Professor Takami Yasuda of the Univ. of Nagoya and Prof. Yasuki Hamano, who is on the board of Ghibli Studios, in addition to being director of the Akira Kurosawa Foundation. I had been a judge at this festival before, in 2001. Other past JDAF judges included Disney animators Duncan Marjoribanks and Eric Goldberg, and Studio Ghibli’s Yoshiyuki Momose. In 2001 one of the prizewinners was a student of mine, Van Phan, who did the film Values.
The winner of this year’s Grand Prize was Tough Guy!, by Shintaro Kishimoto. It ‘s about a kung fu butt-kicking Preying Mantis. The big green guy kicks holes in soda cans and tangles with a nasty flying beetle. Oshii said he was impressed with how the filmmaker mixed digital animation with live action and photo stills to let us experience the world from the Mantis’ point of view. I enjoyed his comic timing. The Gold Prize went to Blues Stories by French animator Roux. It had a very witty soundtrack of manmade sounds.
The Silver Prize went to the film Heart by Tomomi Moriyasu. The Nagoya Chamber of Commerce and Industry Chairman’s Prize went to Maestro by Geza Toth from Hungary. The Japan Association for the 2005 World Exposition Prize went to Michild by Sohei Saito of Japan. Oshii, Ishikawa and I were invited to create our own special prizes and award them to films we liked in particular. The Oshii Prize went to Le Regulateur by Phillipe Gramaticopoulos of France. It was a dark, stylized film that — to me —harkened back to the grand old days of animated filmmaking from Pannonia and Zagreb. When animated shorts were more about provoking discussion than just making a buck.
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