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The Colors Within Anime Wins Animation Is Film Festival's Audience Award

The Colors Within (Kimi no Iro), the latest anime feature film by Science SARU and director Naoko Yamada, won the Audience Award at GKIDS, Annecy, and Variety magazine's Animation Is Film festival in Los Angeles. The Australian stop-motion film Memoirs of a Snail tied with The Colors Within to also win the Audience Award, and it won the Special Jury Prize as well. Flow, Gints Zilbalodis's film produced in Latvia, France, and Belgium, won the Grand Prize. The festival took place in Los Angeles this past weekend on October 18-20.

The festival hosted The Colors Within's North American premiere screening on the event's opening day last Friday, October 18. The festival also screened the U.S. premiere of Mononoke the Movie: The Phantom in the Rain (Gekijōban Mononoke: Karakasa), the first anime film in the new Mononoke film project, as well as the California premiere of the Ghost Cat Anzu French-Japanese animated film. The festival screened the North American premiere of the Miyazaki, Spirit of Nature documentary about the ecological connections throughout Hayao Miyazaki's career.

The Colors Within anime opened in Japan on August 30. The film was originally slated to open in fall 2023, but it was then slated to open in 2024. GKIDS has acquired the film for North America, Latin America, Australia, and New Zealand. Anime Ltd. has acquired the film for Europe. PLAION PICTURES will handle Italian- and German-speaking territories, and CHARADES will manage sales for the rest of Europe, Latin America, Australia, and New Zealand.

The story centers on Totsuko, a high school girl who can see the "colors" of the emotions in people's hearts. She attends a mission school in Nagasaki. In order to keep her friends and family from feeling dark feelings, she worries, reads situations, and even lies to smooth things over. At an antique bookshop in the corner of town, she meets a beautiful woman with an incredibly beautiful color and a music-loving boy trying to put together a band. The story follows these three sensitive people who gather together to play in a band.

Yamada directed the film at Science SARU. Story Inc. is credited as planner and producer. Reiko Yoshida (K-ON!, Girls und Panzer, Ride Your Wave, Violet Evergarden) penned the script, and kensuke ushio (Space Dandy, A Silent Voice, Liz and the Blue Bird, Chainsaw Man) composed the music. DaisukeRichard drafted the original characters, and Takashi Kojima designed the characters and also directed the animation. Mr. Children performs the theme song "in the pocket."

Source: Press release