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Manchester Animation Festival to Screen Satoshi Kon: The Illusionist Documentary

The Manchester Animation Festival will screen Carlotta Films' French documentary film Satoshi Kon, l'illusionniste (Satoshi Kon: The Illusionist, previously titled Satoshi Kon: La Machine À Rêves) by director Pascal-Alex Vincent as the film's U.K. premiere on November 15 at 3:45 p.m.

Following the screening, Michael Leader and Jake Cunningham of the Ghibliotheque podcast will discuss the documentary as well as Kon's films and life.

The film had its world premiere at the Festival de Cannes in July 2021. The film screened in the "Cannes Classics 2021: the documentaries" section of the festival. The documentary film had its North American premiere at Montreal's 25th Fantasia International Film Festival in August 2021.

The documentary features interviews with: Mamoru Oshii, Mamoru Hosoda, Masao Maruyama, Tarō Maki, Masashi Ando, Aya Suzuki, Masaaki Usada, Sadayuki Murai, Hiroyuki Okiura, Masafumi Mima, Yasutaka Tsutsui, Nobutaka Ike, Junko Iwao, Megumi Hayashibara, Shōzō Iizuka, Jeremy Clapin, Marc Caro, Marie Pruvost-Delaspre, Alexis Blanchet, Dimitri Megherbi, Yael Ben Nun, Rodney Rothman, Darren Aronofsky, and Andrew Osmond.

Satoshi Kon passed away on August 24, 2010.

Kon began working as a manga creator on such works as Kaikisen (1990) before deciding to delve into the anime industry with the art design of Hiroyuki Kitakubo and Katsuhiro Ōtomo's Roujin Z video in 1991. He then worked on the script and art direction of "Magnetic Rose," a segment of Otomo's 1995 science-fiction anthology film Memories.

Kon first drew worldwide attention with his feature film directorial debut, the psychological suspense film Perfect Blue, in 1997. He would follow that with a string of critically acclaimed anime projects: Millennium Actress (2001), Tokyo Godfathers (2003), Paranoia Agent (2004), and Paprika (2006). At the time of his passing, Kon was working at Madhouse on a feature film called Yume-Miru Kikai (The Dreaming Machine). Madhouse announced later that year that it had resumed production on Yume-Miru Kikai, but the project remains unfinished. Masao Maruyama most recently stated in August 2018 that the film is still unfinished. He also reported at the same time that that a script is being written for an anime adaptation of Satoshi Kon's OPUS manga.

Source: Manchester Animation Festival

Disclaimer: Andrew Osmond, ANN's UK Editor, is one of the interviewees featured in the film. Andrew was not involved in the writing or editing of this article.