• The Japanese animation cycle will include 16 films
• Among them are several cult films, such as ‘Spirited Away’, ‘Ghost in the Shell’ and ‘Akira’València (10.05.19). In its 34th edition, Cinema Jove offers a cycle dedicated to Japanese animation, a genre that has an increasing number of followers and that is currently present on most digital platform programming.

The festival has programmed 16 films that offer a varied vision of Nippon animation, through diverse stylistic and story-telling perspectives. The cycle will be screened at the Sala Siete of the Rialto Building.

From an experimental perspective, ‘Belladonna of Sadness’ (Eiichi Yamamoto, 1973) should be highlighted; an artistic piece from the 70s that was restored in 2016. The crude story of the main character is backed by psychedelic rock and medieval legends imagery through techniques that are rarely associated to anime.

The film ‘Night Is Short, Walk on Girl’ (Masaaki Yuasa, 2017) is also included, offering a casual and iconoclastic filmic language, seldom seen in the genre.

On the other side of the spectrum, Hayao Miyazaki’s masterpieces ‘Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind’ (1984) and ‘Spirited Away’ (2003) will be screened, this last one a seminal piece, considered one of the best movies in film history, which received more than 14 awards, among them the Best Animated Feature Oscar and the Berlinale Golden Bear.

The film became one of the highest grossing animation films in the world, together with ‘Your name’ (Makoto Shinkai, 2016), based on a novel written by the director and critically acclaimed for its stunning sequences.

Two films by Isao Takahata, who passed away in 2015, are included: ‘The Tale of the Princess Kaguya’ (2015) and ‘Grave of the Fireflies’ (1988). The first film, based on the traditional Japanese tale ‘The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter’, became the artistic testimony for the director; an unusual work in the genre for which he was nominated to the Best Animated Feature Oscar Award in 2013.

The second film, ‘Grave of the Fireflies’, is based on a novel by Akiyuki Nosaka, about the experiences of a World War II survivor.

Also addressing World War II is film ‘Hiroshima’ (Mori Masaki, 1983), a drama based on the homonym manga series by Keiji Nakazawa, an animator and artist that survived the bombing. The film portrays the cruelty of the nuclear bomb explosion in Hiroshima in July 1945 and the following events from the perspective of a child.

Science fiction is present in the cycle through cult films such as futuristic ‘Akira’ (Katsuhiro Otomo, 1988) and ‘Ghost in the Shell’ (Mamoru Oshii, 1995), awarded at the Sitges Festival and a must-see for any anime lover.

The cycle also addresses social issues: harassment and fandom in ‘Perfect Blue’ (Satoshi Kon, 1997), single-parent education in ‘Wolf Children’ (Mamoru Hosoda, 2012), a journey inside the mind in ‘Paprika’ (Satoshi Kon, 2006) and bullying in ‘A silent Voice’ (2016) by Naoko Yamada, one of the only female Japanese anime directors whose work has been screened in Spain.

Cinema Jove is organized by the Institut Valencià de Cultura – IVC and is accredited by the International Federation of Film Producers Associations (FIAPF).