The International Animation Film Festival ‘Hiroshima Animation Season 2022’ was held for five days from 17-21 August 2022 at JMS Aster Plaza and other locations in Hiroshima City, welcoming many guests from Japan and abroad. The festival was a great success with competition screenings, feature screenings, talks, and symposiums by distinguished guests from Japan and abroad.
‘Golden Carpstar 2020-2021’, a research document created in cooperation with Japanese and international animation professionals for selecting the winners of the Golden Carpstar, the festival’s original award to keep track of recent developments in animation scenes in Pan-Pacific and Asia, are now available online in English.
Golden Carpster is a unique award established by the animation film festival Hiroshima Animation Season. The award will be presented to an individual, group, or organisation in the Pan-Pacific and Asia region that has made significant achievements during the two-year period from 2020 to 2021 and will be selected based on their past career and other factors.
In the first edition of the festival, Kristine Belson (Sony Pictures Animation USA president features and series), Science SARU (production studio / Japan), Joe Hsieh (animation director / Taiwan), Documentary and Experimental Film Center (DEFC) (production studio, festival management / Iran), Feinaki: Beijing Animation Week (animation event / China), Yoriko Mizushiri (animation director / Japan) a total of six winners were awarded, and their special programs were held during the festival.
Carpstar is the mascot character of ‘Hiroshima Animation Season’, designed by Koji Yamamura, one of the artistic directors of the festival. The character is a combination of the “carp,” which is familiar to Hiroshima citizens, and a twinkling star.
The catalog was compiled from the research team’s extensive research materials and covers the criteria and selection process, as well as recent trends in animation film fields, a list of major animation film festival nominees, domestic and international events in the animation business from 2020 to 2021, and the country report in the Pan-Pacific and Asia. Highly informative, it provides an overview of the recent animation scene in these regions.
‘Hiroshima Animation Season 2022 Guidebook’ is also available in English. In addition to essays covering the two competition film selections and the featured programs at the festival, the guidebook also contains articles on ‘Hiroshima Artist-in-Residence’. It provides for understanding ‘Hiroshima Animation Season’ as a regional cultural activity that goes beyond the screening of animation films.
The Japanese editions of Golden Carpstar 2020-2021 and ‘Hiroshima Animation Season 2022 Guidebook’ will be available at several bookstores in Hiroshima City.