KCVIII appreciation

[Akiko Sugawa-Shimada]

I really enjoyed myself both in the conference and the festival.  I
would like to thank Alex, Markus, Aaron and other organisers for all
the arrangement.  It was a great opportunities to attend a
conference in the morning, and enjoy watching films, experiencing
all the events that I rarely access from here in Madrid.  And I
would like to thank all the volunteer helpers as well.

As for Lorenzo's comments,

> The discussions were very interesting, but I'd like to share
> with you one of
> the questions that came out (from a Japanese man whose name I
> don't know,
> but that may be someone there can remember...). It was the
> last day in
> 70/80/... Panel: He noticed how in Japanese animation you can
> recurrently
> find the question about "human being". 

> I would say, to incorporate more subjects to the debate, that
> animation
> works very well too with unconscious, dreams, etc., as we saw
> in one
> fantastic animation movie in Nippon Connection: Paprika.

The man you mentioned is Mr. Yomota.  I agree that animation is a
good means to convey those philosophical issues.  And I also think
that although various topics are dealt with by the use of animation,
probably the one that have most popularity is animation films which
are dealing with human beings.  Clone humans, cyborg bodies, complex
gender/transgender representations, dysfunctional communication
skills etc. are more deftly depicted in animation.  But most
animation directors have got hints from live action films, so it is
interesting to trace origins of their ideas and techniques.

I noticed that there are many films about dreams and trauma in the
selection of Nippon Connection: *Paprika*, as Lorenzo said, is one
of them and *Nightmare Detective*, *Tekkonkincrete*, *Uncle's
Paradise*,*Beyond Aomi's Second Ward* in Musashino Fireworks etc. 
Probably it's just a coincidence, but it's quite intriguing how each
director uses dream as a mysterious site to consider who you are and
why you are here.

Finally, I could not attend the final party, so here I would like to
tell all of participants of Kinema Club and Nippon Connection that I
would like to thank them for all the comments and information they
gave me and am really looking forward to seeing them in our next
conference.

Akiko Sugawa Shimada
Madrid 


 

******
Akiko Sugawa-Shimada
akiss00999 at yahoo.co.jp

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