Kenji Iwaisawa: Last News

With his debut feature On-Gaku: Our Sound, Kenji Iwaisawa looked to “pursue a new expression” in animation, through the juxtaposition of offbeat characters and deadpan atmosphere not often found in the medium.

Jamie Lang Japanese director Kenji Iwaisawa‘s debut feature “On-Gaku: Our Sound” was a hit at the 2020 Annecy Animation Festival, where it played in the festival’s Contrechamp competition and won best original music. This year, the filmmaker returns to Annecy to present his next film, “Hyakuemu.”, in a dedicated Annecy Work in Progress session. Based on the original manga “Chi: Chikyū no Undō ni Tsuite” by Uoto, the film tells the story of Togashi, a child born to run.

Kenji Iwaisawa, director of the cult “On-Gaku: Our Sound”), headlines an Annecy Animation Showcase at this year’s Cannes’ Marché du Film.  The Showcase in general look like a declaration of intentions from the world’s most important animation festival: Its heartfelt support for some of the world’s most original, redolent and sometimes riotous – think France’s Jul, Brazil’s Otto Guerra – adult animation auteurs of all ages, hailing from four corners of the earth. “Hina” looks to have largely flown  under the international radar to date, which will make this year’s Showcase a must-attend after Iwaisawa burst onto the scene with left-of-field musical comedy “On-Gaku: Our Sound,” hailed by Variety as 2020’s “biggest dark horse in anime fandom.” If it’s half as good as “On-Gaku” which in 2019 beat “I Lost My Body” and “Children of the Sea” to win the Grand Prix at the Ottawa Animation Festival, as Variety noted, it should be worth watching.