Japanese Currents SAPPORO ANIME SHORTS DIRECTOR: VARIOUS JAPAN, 2008-2009
Sun, Dec 6, 2009 at 4:30 PM
This year marks the 50th anniversary of Portland’s sister city relationship with Sapporo, Japan, in honor of which we present a program of anime shorts selected from this year’s Sapporo International Short Film Festival. The program includes: FROG SEED, the story of a frog uprooted from his jungle home and brought to the city, where his death transforms the urban landscape; ROUND ROAD, a poetic exploration of the interconnectivity of nature and its creatures, in which humans are merely one facet; CYBORG 11, in which a cyborg from the future travels back to 2006 to investigate a corrupt construction company whose faulty buildings endanger Tokyo; TSUKUMO NO KIMOCHI, in which a toddler protests his father’s method of dealing with their home’s pest control problem; KUDAN, the stunning tale of a mysterious gift that transports a man and his son to a perilous underworld; THE SONG OF RED FOREST, a musical meditation on nature’s ecological hierarchy; and CENCOROLL, in which a boy and his morphing pet monster defend their city from rival monsters with the help of a brave young girl. ( 80 min )
Join us for a post-film reception in the Andree Stevens Board Room, hosted by the Portland Sapporo Sister City Association.