August 11, 2014

Mizuho Nishikubo's new animated feature film, Giovanni's Island was greeted with the Satoshi Kon Award for Achievement in Animation and the Audience Award for best animated feature film at the 18th Fantasia Film Festival (Fantasia 2014), held in Montreal, Canada, from July 17 to August 6, 2014. The screening at Fantasia marked the movie's Canadian premiere.

Fantasia Film Festival describes Giovanni's Island as follows:
"A testament to the emotional resilience of children, and the preciousness of those lost but not forgotten, Giovanni's Island echoes the work of the master Miyazaki in refusing to paint a picture of extreme moral contrasts. There are no heroes or villains here, just ordinary people managing as best they can under trying circumstances. Mizuho Nishikubo invests the film with an elegantly simple yet clearly articulated visual style, whether his eye settles on the mundane local landscape of the magical realm of Kenji Miyazawa's fantasy. This historical melodrama is a superior work of animation, unsurprising as it arrives on the Fantasia screen bearing the high-standard stamp of Japan's internationally celebrated studio Production I.G."

Fantasia Film Festival is North America's premiere and largest genre film festival, taking place in the city of Montreal, and was the first member of the European Fantastic Film Festivals Federation outside of Europe. It has been described by Quentin Tarantino as "The most important and prestigious genre film festival on this continent."

Screening schedule:
Date: July 27, 2014 (Sun)
Time: 3:00 PM
Place: Concordia Hall Theatre

Fantasia 2014 official website:
http://www.fantasiafestival.com/2014/

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