A modern international film festival dedicated to animated features is set to host its first edition in Nagoya, Japan later this year. The inaug
A modern international film festival dedicated to animated features is set to host its first edition in Nagoya, Japan later this year.
The inaugural Aichi Nagoya International Animation Film Festival (ANIAFF) is scheduled to take place from December 12-17. Aichi Prefecture and the city of Nagoya is known as the home of Ghibli Park, a theme park dedicated to acclaimed animation house Studio Ghibli.
ANIAFF’s organisers include general director Taro Maki, a veteran producer and president of animation studio Genco; festival director Shinichiro Inoue, former chief anime officer at Kadokawa; and artistic director Tadashi Sudo, an anime journalist and critic. All three served in similar positions at the Niigata International Animation Film Festival (NIAFF), with which they are no longer involved.
ANIAFF’s main feature will be an international competition comprising films with a duration of at least 40 minutes, which were completed after January 2024. Artistic director Sudo stated there are still relatively few festivals worldwide dedicated to animated features, citing Annecy and Niigata as scarce examples.
Competition awards include a grand prize ($7,000/¥1m), a jury prize ($3,500/¥500,000) and an audience prize ($1,400/¥200,000).
Further sections will include non-competition films in their world or Japan premieres; a retrospective section featuring spotlights on directors and studios; a “new wave” section focused on subjects like technology such as XR and AI; and panels featuring industry guests and seminar discussions.
The festival will be held at Midland Square Cinema and 109 Cinemas Nagoya among other venues.
The organisers also outlined a pitch market, at which creators will be able to showcase original concepts to studios and other businesses. They stressed that only the broad outlines of the pitch market have been decided. Similar markets at the likes of AnimeJapan and TIFFCOM are primarily focused on completed projects, but there are few stages in Japan where modern ideas can be pitched.
“There are opportunities for Japanese animation creators to pitch abroad at events like Annecy or in the US, but the reverse hasn’t been the case,” said Sudo at a press conference held today (June 2) in Tokyo.
Inoue added that he hopes the pitch market will escalate the number of original anime projects not based on existing properties such as manga or novels, which continue to dominate the market.
The festival was first proposed by Aichi Prefecture governor Hideaki Omura.
As well as Ghibli Park, which opened in 2022, Aichi Prefecture and Nagoya are home to cultural events such as the Aichi Triennale and the World Cosplay Summit. Nagoya’s proximity to Tokyo and Osaka (90 minutes and 1 hour by bullet train, respectively) was also cited as a strength of the city.
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