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Penguin Highway Film Wins Satoshi Kon Award at Fantasia Int'l Film Festival

Montreal's Fantasia International Film Festival revealed its winners for this year's festival on Tuesday. Hiroyasu Ishida and Studio Colorido's anime film adaptation of Tomihiko Morimi's Penguin Highway novel won the "Axis: The Satoshi Kon Award for Excellence in Animation" award for Best Animated Feature.

The film will open in Japan on August 17.

The novel's story center on fourth grader Aoyama (Kana Kita) and a mysterious older woman (Yū Aoi), who is a dental assistant and also Aoyama's first crush. When a group of penguins appears in his quiet suburban neighborhood, Aoyama works to uncover the reason for their appearance.

Hiroyasu Ishida, who directed Colorido's "Hinata no Aoshigure" and "Fumiko's Confession" shorts, directed the film as his first feature-length directorial work. Typhoon Noruda director Yōjirō Arai designed the characters for the film. Makoto Ueda, who wrote and supervised the scripts for anime adaptations of Morimi's The Tatami Galaxy and Night is Short, Walk On Girl novels, returned to pen the script for this film. Umitarō Abe composed the music.

Yen Press licensed Morimi's original novel.

Madhouse previously adapted Morimi's The Tatami Galaxy (Yojō-Han Shinwa Taikei) novel into a 2010 television anime under director Masaaki Yuasa. Yuasa returned to adapt Morimi's Night is Short, Walk On Girl (Yoru wa Mijikashi Arukeyo Otome) at his Science SARU studio, and the film premiered in April 2017 in Japan. P.A. Works adapted both of Morimi's The Eccentric Family (Uchōten Kazoku) novels into two television anime seasons in 2013 and 2017.

Thanks to DatRandomDude for the news tip.

Source: Fantasia Festival