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Garden of Words Wins Stuttgart Fest of Animated Film's Top Award
posted on by Egan Loo
Makoto Shinkai's The Garden of Words won the award for the best animated feature film at the Stuttgart Festival of Animated Film in Germany on Sunday. The film competed in the feature film category of the festival's AniMovie portion with 11 other films from Africa, France, Italy, Denmark, Norway, the United States and Belgium. The other films included Mizuho Nishikubo's Giovanni's Island, Bill Plympton's Cheatin', and Hélène Giraud and Thomas Szabo's Minuscule - Valley of the Lost Ants.
85,000 attendees watched over 1,000 works during the April 22-27 festival.
The Garden of Words follows the story of shoemaker-in-training Takao, who begins sketching shoes in a Japanese-style garden. He meets a mysterious older woman, and the two start meeting and deepening their relationship.
The Garden of Words also won The Satoshi Kon Award for Achievement in Animation at Montreal's Fantasia International Film Festival. Sentai Filmworks licensed the film even before its May 2013 opening in Japan. Vertical will publish Midori Motohashi's manga adaptation in North America.
Source: animeanime.jp
Image © Makoto Shinkai/CoMix Wave Films
