Tag: New York International Children’s Film Festival

NYICFF 2012: A Letter to Momo, Letters to No One

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The New York International Children’s Film Festival in a unique opportunity to see translated animated films from around the world. This means they often play anime films even before they appear on the fan sub circuit giving the festival a unique appeal to anime fans. It is one of the few times you can still go in cold to an anime. I certainly had no knowledge about A Letter to Momo other than the blurb on the website. That is just a feeling you don’t get as much any more. Just the ability to see something and judge for yourself if it is a gem is a fun little treat. That sometimes means you sit through some mediocre material as well but the chance to get a relatively clean movie watching experience free from hype or prejudice is worth it by itself.

Two anime were being shown at the festival this year, A Letter to Momo and Children Who Chase Voices From Deep Below. A Letter to Momo is one I had only read about being in production, but little else after it premiered. I was pretty much going in blind other than knowing Production I.G worked on it. But a lot of times I put myself in the hands of the festival, if for nothing else this may be the only chance I’d have at seeing these films. A Letter to Momo brings brightness to the subject of grief but over stays its welcome to a degree.

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New York International Children’s Film Festival 2011

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The New York International Children’s Film Festival is one of the many things that makes me happy I live in NYC. Truth be told I’d probably see all the films if I had the means. Normally, I’d make sure to see all the anime on the list but I just couldn’t bring myself to watch Welcome to the Space Show again, sorry! So instead we opted for some more international flare.

This year our sampling of the New York International Children’s Film Festival is truly an international experience. While there was an outstanding anime in the lineup, two-thirds of our selections were from non-Japanese animated features. We took in a French film as well as one from China. While a single film is hardly a full representation of the animated output of their respective countries it is still a fun thought experiment to compare and contrast them.

Time of Eve, while not new to me, was still a high priority. Not only did I love the ONA but I wanted to support the title in the hopes of seeing more from its creators or more specifically a continuation to Time of Eve itself. It also helped that the movie has an extra 15-minutes of footage. Time of Eve explores the relationship between human and robot when the lines start to blur. Titles that tackle this subject are about realizing your own humanity and acknowledging it around you, in Time of Eve we explore it through two teens, Rikuo and Masaki. The series is just as engaging a second time around with thoughtful amounts of drama, comedy, and questions. The additions to film are learning just a bit more about a couple of characters, but both of these additions just make you wish the series would go on to tells us their stories further. Like any true movie go-er should, watch through the credits as the stills actually tell you a new story and there is a scene after as well.

We went into the Time of Eve having seen a majority of the movie and knowing it was very good. If you are curious about the ONA series you can check out our review of it or watch it yourself on Crunchyroll. The question on our minds was what was added when they turned the series into a movie. It turns out they added a few new scenes which are mainly used to stitch the 6 episodes together while providing some major insights into the characters and world of the Time of Eve. The major benefit is the Ethics Committee is always being prominently mentioned from the beginning of the movie so they don’t move to the forefront only in the last episode like in the original. The extremely mysterious Setoro also gets a good deal more fleshing out while still retaining his enigmatic nature. They also make the origins of Nagi and the cafe a bit more obvious with a completely new epilogue during the credits. The movie itself is worth a watch for original fans of the show just for those revelations alone. While the movie does make a few things clearer it does introduce some new characters and questions and in doing so is practically begging for a second season. I truly hope that this movie is able to raise the interest and capital to make more of this wonderful science fiction series.

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NYICFF 2010: Oblivion Island, Waiting for Cotton Gaiden.

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As a person who tends to be absent minded I get a certain amount of dread whenever I cannot find something and wonder if I have lost it forever. So I acutely understand the pain and loss of losing track of something precious. But I think that it a universal misfortune that everyone has faced at one time or another. Oblivion Island taps into this feeling while tying it into a fantasy adventure story that uses Japanese myth to tell a tale of friendship and the bonds of family.

I wasn’t very interested in Oblivion Island, but really I don’t know why that was. I had heard of the film, but not really gone out of my way to learn more about it. The real draw in the end was that it is by Production I.G. And considering the fact that you shouldn’t look the gift of a film festival in the mouth, I ended up with a ticket to the last-minute-added showing.

The opening scene is a young girl named Haruka being read a picture book while visiting her sickly mother in the hospital. The story is about foxes who take things which people no longer appreciate. We then fast forward to Haruka in her teens. Haruka notices that the mirror her mother gave her, who has since passed away, has disappeared. In trying to find the mirror she follows a fox named Teo back to his magical homeland. Teo decided to help her find her missing mirror so he can get rid of her before everyone else realizes he has let a human discover their world. But they soon realize that in the world of Oblivion Island the mirror has great power and its new owner will not give it up easily.

The plot is steadfastly simple, we are taken in by Haruka’s adorable child-self and the very relatable plight of looking for something that was once important only to find it has disappeared from neglect. The world of the Kitsune, who are really all kinds of strange looking creatures who just wear fox masks, is colorful and vibrate with life. The looming evil a foot, which doesn’t ever get a good grip on just what it is doing, adds some stunning machine and battle moments. As the teen Haruka encounters this strange otherworld, she regains not only lost items, but lost feelings and memories as well. However, as the story goes on the connected feeling from the beginning moments is neglected and you never truly feel the what is displayed, you merely see it.

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