Yuasa made OIAF history this year by becoming the first filmmaker to have two nominations in the features category, with his film Lu Over the Wall also in competition. The Grand Prize for Features went to the surrealist romantic comedy Night Is Short, Walk on Girl, directed by Masaaki Yuasa. The Nelvana Grand Prize for Independent Short went to Nikita Diakur’s Ugly, a simulated short film about two beings trying to find peace in a dystopic neighborhood. The OIAF received a total of 1,992 entries and selected 105 short films and five feature films from 85 different countries. OTTAWA - The Ottawa International Animation Festival, North America’s leading animation film festival, announced the winners of its 2017 Official Competition today at an awards ceremony held at Saint Brigid’s Centre for the Arts. Casting a stalker as protagonist and seemingly normalising that behaviour only further complicates a problematic screenplay.Nikita Diakur’s ‘Ugly’ wins the Nelvana Grand Prize for Independent Short Animation at OIAF 2017. As spectacle it’s arresting, but the lack of character development eventually becomes mind-numbing.
The Night is Short plays its best hand in the first act. For example, Senpai nonchalantly agrees to use video surveillance on his crush, then uses that data to psychologically manipulate her into liking him, which – unbelievably – works. Said sentiment is only reinforced by the film’s seeming attempts to downplay its creepier subtexts. This imbues the film with a sense of ‘male gaze’ that makes it unnerving. Kuro Kami no Otome has a likeable disposition, but she is always the object – never the subject – of desire, intrigue or surveillance. These feel a little at odds with the distinctly Japanese daruma dolls, cherry blossom petals and festival lanterns on display throughout. Musically, the tone is surprisingly European, incorporating Disneyland-esque waltzes, jaunty woodwind numbers and even a little tango. Here, Yuasa’s frames bristle with colour, some scene transitions are remarkable feats of editing, and the environment designs adeptly fuse Japanese aesthetics and motifs with French animation techniques that owe a hat tip to Sylvain Chomet’s The Triplets of Belleville. This is his second time adapting Morimi’s novels: The Tatami Galaxy (2010) won plaudits for its bold style and scintillating directorial originality. Amidst the pandemonium, in a bid to satisfy his romantic aspirations, Senpai begins taking drastic measures to try and impress the girl of his dreams.ĭirector Masaaki Yuasa is a very established animator, screenwriter and director, having worked on shows like Crayon Shin-chan and Adventure Time. One night, both are in attendance at an evening get-together which blossoms into a burlesque night-time voyage across the labyrinthine city. Based on Tomihiko Morimi’s bestselling book of the same name, this questionable anime drama ( Yoru wa Mijikashi Arukeyo Otome in Japanese) sees Saitama pop star Gen Hoshino play Senpai (‘senior’), a guy with a major crush on a younger colleague, impersonally referred to as Kuro Kami no Otome (‘The Girl with the Black Hair’).
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