posted on by Joanna Cayanan
© 2023西村ツチカ／小学館／「北極百貨店のコンシェルジュさん」製作委員会
The 36th Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) announced on Tuesday that it will screen the upcoming anime films The Concierge (Hokkyoku Hyakkaten no Concierge-san or literally, The Concierge at Hokkyoku Department Store) and Komada – A Whisky Family in the Animation section during the festival from October 23 to November 1. The same section will also screen the previously released anime films Blue Giant and Lonely Castle in the Mirror, plus the following international animated films:
- Art College 1994 by Liu Jian (2023, China)
- Chicken for Linda! by Chiara Malta, Sébastien
- Laudenbach (2023, France)
- Deep Sea by Tian Xiaopeng (2023, China)
- Robot Dreams by Pablo Berger (2023, Spain/France)
- Tony, Shelly, and the Magic Light by Filip Pošivač (2023, Czech Republic/Slovakia/Hungary)
This is the first year of the “revitalized” Animation section. The festival previously had a “Japanese Animation” section that only screened Japanese films.
The festival will also screen the In This Corner (and Other Corners) of the World, Lu over the wall, and ON-GAKU: Our Sound anime films under the International Film Festivals and Directors retrospective category of the Animation section.
The Concierge (image right) will open in Japan on October 20, and the Komada – A Whisky Family will open in Japan on November 10.
Blue Giant opened in Japan on February 17, and it earned 116,561,020 yen (about US$867,600) in its first three days. GKIDS will screen the film in select North American theaters on October 8-9. Japan Society will host the North American premiere in New York on October 6 with the film’s composer Hiromi Uehara in attendance.
Lonely Castle in the Mirror opened in Japan in December 2022. The film screened at the International Film Festival Rotterdam on February 2 with director Keiichi Hara in attendance. The New York International Children’s Film Festival screened the U.S. premiere in March. GKIDS screened the film in Japanese with English subtitles and with an English dub in select theaters in North America on June 21-22.
Masaaki Yuasa and Science SARU‘s Lu over the wall won top the “Cristal for a Feature Film” award, and Sunao Katabuchi and MAPPA‘s 2016 In This Corner of the World film won the Jury Award in the Feature Film category of the Annecy International Animation Film Festival in 2017. Kenji Iwaisawa‘s ON-GAKU: Our Sound film won the Best Original Music Award for a Feature Film in the Special Awards Ceremony of the 2020 Annecy Film Festival.
The 36th Tokyo International Film Festival will be held at the Hibiya-Yurakucho-Marunouchi-Ginza area from October 23 until November 1.
Source: Press release
