News
British Cultural Organizations Hold Anime Events
posted on by Mikhail Koulikov
Three separate cultural organizations in London will be running anime-related events in the next two months. On Sunday, September 16, as part of its Premiere Japan 07 festival, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts will hold a screening of Nitaboh. Directed by Akio Nishizawa, this film is an animated biography of Nitaro Akimoto, the blind musician who founded the Tsugaru style of playing the shamisen three-string guitar. Details about the screening can be found here.
On September 7, the British Museum will launch its "Late Night Manga to Anime" film series, held as part of a wider program entitled "Crafting Beauty in Modern Japan." The goal of this series is to introduce viewers to some of the most groundbreaking manga-inspired films of the medium. It will consist of screenings of Phoenix 2772 - Space Firebird, Barefoot Gen, Akira, They Were Eleven, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex: Solid State Society and Ghost in the Shell: Innocence. Comics scholar Paul Gravett, the author of Manga: 60 Years of Japanese Comics, will introduce each film. Earlier in the summer, the British Museum held a similar series entitled "Manga to Anime for Families", which included the Naruto movie, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind and Porco Rosso.
Finally, on October 24, The Japan Foundation is hosting a free lecture on the history of anime and on Japanese fantasy and science-fiction cinema in general. It will be presented by anime critic and writer Helen McCarthy and Leeds International Film Festival director Chris Fell. Additional information about this talk is available on The Japan Foundation website.
