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Director Sunao Katabuchi to Receive Bucheon Int'l Animation Film Fest Award
posted on by Alex Mateo
The 21st Bucheon International Animation Festival (BIAF) announced on Monday that it has selected director Sunao Katabuchi (In This Corner of the World) to receive the BIAF Honorary Award. According to the BIAF, the "BIAF Honorary Award is presented to the director who has made the greatest achievement in the artistry of the animation genre."
Katabuchi will receive the award in person at the festival's opening ceremony in South Korea on October 18 at 7:00 p.m. BIAF, an official Academy Award-qualifying international film festival, will take place from October 18 to 22.
Katabuchi's In This Corner of the World film won the Grand Prize at the BIAF, Best Animation of the Year at the Japan Academy Prizes, and the Jury Award in the Feature Film category at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival in 2017. Katabuchi served as the jury president of the BIAF, directed the the festival's posters and trailers, and "contributed to the establishment of the BIAF identity" in 2018. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences also invited and appointed Katabuchi as a member in 2018.
Nominees for this year's BIAF Feature Film International Competition include Keiichi Hara's Birthday Wonderland, Fuminori Kizaki's Human Lost, and Yutaka Yamamoto's Twilight. The festival will have a Q&A session for Katabuchi's Princess Arete film and a master class for his Mai Mai Miracle film. Other anime listed with Q&A sessions at the festival include "Shishigari," Memory of Blue, Twilight, Human Lost, "Leaking Life," and The Girl from the Other Side. The Pigtails film will have a special talk. In addition, Masaaki Yuasa (Ride Your Wave) is directing the festival's opening film, and Yoshimi Itazu (Miss Hokusai) is serving as a judge at the festival.
The 20th BIAF awarded Production I.G's B: The Beginning animated series with the Jury Prize in the TV & Commissioned Films competition category in October 2018.
Shout! Factory and Funimation Films screened the anime film adaptation of Fumiyo Kouno's In This Corner of the World (Kono Sekai no Katasumi ni) manga in the United States and Canada in August 2017. Katabuchi wrote and directed the film, and GENCO and animation studio MAPPA produced the film. In This Corner (and Other Corners) of the World [Kono Sekai no (Sara ni Ikutsumono) Katasumi ni] — the extended version of the film — will open in Japan on December 20.
Sources: BIAF, Animation Business Journal (Tadashi Sudo)
