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Koji Yamamura's Muybridge's Strings Nominated for Genie Award
posted on by Crystalyn Hodgkins
"Muybridge's Strings," the latest anime short by Oscar-nominated animator Koji Yamamura ("Mt. Head," "Franz Kafka's A Country Doctor"), has been nominated for Canada's 32nd Annual Genie Awards in the animated short category. The film is eligible for a Canadian award because the National Film Board of Canada/Office national du film du Canada (NFB/ONF) was part of the film's international production; it is the first Japanese anime short to be jointly produced by the NFB. The awards ceremony will be held on March 8 in Toronto.
The short film previously won the Excellence Prize at the 15th Japan Media Arts Festival Awards last month.
The federal cultural agency Telefilm Canada describes the film's story as follows: "The destiny of photographer Eadweard Muybridge and that of a Japanese mother clash poetically in this exploration of the irrepressible human desire to make time stand still." The 14-minute short premiered at the Cannes Film Market, which ran in May in France alongside the more well-known Cannes Film Festival. The film opened Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography on September 17.
Yamamura received an Academy Award nod in 2003 for his short "Mt. Head," although he did not win. He remains the only Japanese animator besides Hayao Miyazaki and Kunio Katō to be nominated for an Oscar. Zeitgeist Films released a DVD of "Mt. Head" and Yamamura's other shorts in North America in December 2010. Yamamura also served as the art director of NHK's Purekiso Eigo (Early Basic English) television program of animated shorts.
Source: Anime!Anime!
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