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Independent Anime Screenings in Bristol including Muybridge's Strings

The Encounters Short Film and Animation Festival in Bristol in September 2012 includes two award-winning short Japanese animation films. Both will be shown in the same programme, entitled Time Passages. The programme will be shown on Thursday September 20 and Sunday September 23; it costs £6.50 or £5 concessions, and can be booked by calling 0117 917 2300. The venue is the Arnolfini Auditorium, 15 minutes from Temple Meads station (details).

"Muybridge's Strings" is the latest anime short by Oscar-nominated animator Koji Yamamura ("Mt. Head," "Franz Kafka's A Country Doctor").

At the 14th Hiroshima Animation Film Festival, the 12-minute short won the award "for successful use of modern animation techniques to reveal the life of the inventor of the moving image." The film previously won the Excellence Prize at the 15th Japan Media Arts Festival Awards in December, and it was nominated for Canada's 32nd Annual Genie Awards in the animated short category in January. The federal cultural agency Telefilm Canada describes the 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."

Directed by Isamu Hirabayashi, the film 663114 is a response to the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, and won the 2011 Noburo Ofuji award given out by the Mainichi Shinbun newspaper since 1962 for animation excellence. There is a detailed review of 663114 on the Nishikata Film Review website.