A new online ani­mé fes­ti­val promis­es to broad­en horizons

Even in nor­mal times, new ani­mé releas­es are often dif­fi­cult to come by. Often restrict­ed by lim­it­ed the­atri­cal win­dows, new releas­es come and go in the blink of an eye, mak­ing it tricky for new audi­ences to find a way in.

Ani­mé Lim­it­ed, one of the UK’s main dis­trib­u­tors of the medi­um, is look­ing to solve two prob­lems at once with their new online film fes­ti­val Screen Ani­mé, as CEO Andrew Par­tridge says, by “[tak­ing] the film fes­ti­val expe­ri­ence online, and at the same time [address­ing] a gap we recog­nise from fan feed­back in how the­atri­cal ani­mé is released to date.”

The new online fes­ti­val will have a rolling cura­tion of ani­mé titles, updat­ed every month along with fan events. It’s a great oppor­tu­ni­ty to become acquaint­ed with a wider range of Japan’s ani­ma­tion out­put. For the festival’s launch, here’s a quick primer for the first selec­tion of films:

Hiroy­a­su Ishida’s Pen­guin High­way is beau­ti­ful­ly ani­mat­ed and smart­ly adapt­ed Tomi­hiko Miromi’s sci­ence fic­tion nov­el. The sto­ry fol­lows young Aoya­ma as he works to solve the mys­te­ri­ous appear­ance of pen­guins in his vil­lage, linked to a young woman work­ing at the local den­tist. It’s rem­i­nis­cent of the work of Stu­dio Ghi­b­li, with its del­i­cate score, pre­co­cious but com­pli­cat­ed chil­dren and patient approach its main mys­tery which is inter­twined with nature. Bring­ing equal amounts of silli­ness and sin­cer­i­ty to its zany premise, this might be the best start­ing place for those still look­ing for a route in to animé.

An ​“excit­ing cacoph­o­ny of flames, robots, chis­elled tor­sos and ridicu­lous catch­phras­es” (words I stand by!), Pro­mare is a whirl­wind of a film from the young Stu­dio Trig­ger. Direct­ed by stu­dio co-founder Hiroyu­ki Imaishi, this is an impres­sive, most­ly suc­cess­ful attempt to ful­ly merge 2D and 3D modes of ani­ma­tion. Its unre­strained and self-aware antics are intox­i­cat­ing, not least of all in its cen­tral (often homo­erot­ic) rival­ry between bone-head­ed fire­fight­er Galo and mutant ally Lio Fotia. Ridicu­lous fun, and a great exam­ple of new poten­tial avenues for visu­al expres­sion in animé.

A post-apoc­a­lypse ani­mé about the world quite lit­er­al­ly being turned upside down, Patema Invert­ed makes a sur­pris­ing­ly effec­tive alle­go­ry for iso­la­tion­ism out of its unusu­al premise as it details the per­se­cu­tion of ​“Inverts”, peo­ple forced to hide under­ground after a strange calami­ty. Writer/​director Yasuhi­ro Yoshiu­ra does well to keep their audi­ence guess­ing with a num­ber of ele­gant­ly exe­cut­ed twists, that will leave most unsure as to where is up and where is down. That the sto­ry is some­what held togeth­er by con­trivances feels unim­por­tant, as every moment of empa­thy is well-earned.

Though it’s prob­a­bly the old­est and deep­est cut in this ini­tial line-up, Roy­al Space Force is far from a rel­ic. Brought to life by a ver­i­ta­ble sta­ble of tal­ent includ­ing Ryuchi Sakamo­to and Hidea­ki Anno, direc­tor Hiroyu­ki Yam­a­ga explores a world where the space race and colo­nial atti­tudes towards it pos­sess a reli­gious fer­vour. Rough-edged and delib­er­ate­ly paced, it can be a rocky view­ing expe­ri­ence – due in no small part to a scene of sex­u­al assault which is trou­bling­ly swept aside – but for the most part, it’s a thought­ful, some­times beau­ti­ful inter­ro­ga­tion of the socio-polit­i­cal cost of tech­no­log­i­cal progress.

Screen Ani­mé launch­es on 25 May at screenanime​.com