By We Are Aliens, the anime film by Kōhei Kadowaki and NOTHING NEW, has won the Anima’t Award for best feature-length film at the 59th Sitges Film Festival in Catalonia, Spain. It is the first Japanese film to win the award since Yūta Murano’s Seven Days War six years ago.
We Are Aliens (Credits: NOTHING NEW, MIYU Productions)
The win places Kadowaki in rare company. The only other Japanese films to take the Anima’t Award are Makoto Shinkai’s your name. in 2016 and Mamoru Hosoda’s Mirai in 2018. Kadowaki, who just turned 30 on October 14, is now the youngest Japanese director ever to achieve the feat.
A Story of Two Broken Friends
The film centers on Tsubasa and Gyōtarō, two boys who were close friends in elementary school before jealousy and misunderstandings drove them apart. Years later, living very different lives, buried memories resurface and force them to confront what happened between them.
The cast features Ryōta Bandō (Fureru.) as the adult Tsubasa and Amane Okayama (Blue Giant) as the adult Gyōtarō, with child actors Yūto Maki and Tasuku Nakagome voicing the younger versions. Sakurazaka46 idol Ten Yamasaki also stars as Konatsu.
A Festival Favorite Worldwide
The film opened in Japan on September 15 and has been on a remarkable festival run, screening at Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight, in competition at Annecy, and at festivals in Melbourne, New Zealand, Busan, and Ottawa — where it took the Grand Prize for Animated Feature just last month.
Kadowaki, known for the second BEASTARS season’s ending sequence and music videos for YOASOBI, served as planner, scriptwriter, director, storyboard artist, and editor on the project. At 30, with a Sitges win on his résumé, he is officially one of anime’s directors to watch.
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Source: Anime News Network — read the full story there.
