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Oscar-Nominated Director Yamamura Previews New Shorts in Trailer
posted on by Rafael Antonio Pineda
The YouTube channel of Japanese media news website Movie Collection began streaming two new trailers for Oscar-nominated animator Koji Yamamura's "Notes on Monstropedia" ("Kaibutsu Gakushō") and "Satie's 'Parade'" shorts on Monday. Both shorts will screen in Japanese theaters as part of "Yamamura Koji Hidarime to Migime de Miru Yume" collection of nine animated shorts, which will begin screening in Japan on August 5.
"Notes on Monstropedia" will show monsters themed after Medieval European monsters with strange names. Yamamura got the idea for the short in 2013 when sketching monsters in his notebook, and got the idea for the strange names from terms and words that became strange when translated. The short will use George Frideric Handel's "Harpsichord Suite In F, HWV 427" and "Harpsichord Suite In D Minor, HWV 428" for music, arranged and performed by Hitomi Shimizu.
"Satie's 'Parade'" takes its imagery from the titular "Parade" ballet by Erik Satie, Jean Cocteau, and Pablo Picasso, and celebrates the centennial anniversary of the ballet's 1917 debut in Paris. The music for the short uses excerpts from Erik Satie's score for the ballet. Yamamura debuted the short in 2016, the 150th anniversary of Satie's birth. The short screened in 83 film festivals around the world and won 13 awards.
Yamamura is also supervising an animation project based on Antonio Vivaldi's Baroque concerto series The Four Seasons.
In 2003, Yamamura and Spirited Away director Hayao Miyazaki became the first directors nominated for an Academy Award with a Japanese animated work. Yamamura was nominated for his Mty. Head short.
