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Death Note Films to Premiere in United Kingdom
posted on by Mikhail Koulikov
Death Note and Death Note: The Last Name, Shusuke Kaneko's adaptations of Tsugumi Ooba and Takeshi Obata's psychological horror manga, will be screened in the United Kingdom for the first time on November 10 and 11 as part of this year's Leeds International Film Festival. The festival will also include UK premieres of Freesia, which is based on a manga by Jiro Matsumoto about a near-future Japan where the government has begun sanctioning revenge killings, and Strawberry Shortcakes, an adaptation of Kiriko Nananan's Sweet Cream and Red Strawberries josei manga. Strawberry Shortcakes will compete for the festival's grand prize, known as the Golden Owl, while both of the Death Note movies and Freesia will be shown in the non-competition Fanomenon program.
Fanomenon, the only dedicated "genre" film festival track in the UK, will also include screenings of anime features Vexille and Tekkon kinkreet, and the UK premiere of Wool 100%. This film, which has won awards at the Sundance and Fantasia Film Festivals, combines actors, puppetry and traditional animation sequences. The track will feature the Moebius Redux documentary profile of Jean Giraud, the originator of the nouvelle manga movement that seeks to combine European and Japanese artistic sensibilities in sequential art.
In addition, a three-day comics/manga/sequential art festival featuring several panels and art exhibitions will be held alongside the main Leeds schedule this year.
