The 2024 line-up for the Cannes Film Festival’s Director’s Fortnight sidebar has been unveiled, and among the selected titles is the Japanese-French co-production Ghost Cat Anzu.
Ghost Cat Anzu is an adaptation of the manga by Takashi Imashiro, produced by Japan’s Shin-Ei Animation and France’s Miyu Productions. The directors of the film, which makes use of rotoscoping, are Yoko Kuno (Land of the Lustrous episode director team member, “Magic” music video co-director, Crayon Shin-chan: Mononoke Ninja Chinpuuden co-character designer) and live-action director Nobuhiro Yamashita (Karaoke Iko!, Ichibyou saki no Kare).
In a message posted on the Ghost Cat Anzu website, Kuno expressed her surprise and delight, and thanked producer Keisuke Kondo for inviting her and Yamashita to work on the “enjoyable” movie. “Please allow me treat you to big cuts of meat at Cannes,” she concluded.
Director’s Fortnight is a non-competitive, Cannes-sanctioned independent sidebar created in 1969. It welcomes “short, medium- and feature-length films, fiction and non-fiction, live action and animation” and cites “a filmmaker’s attendance to mise en scene, and their unique mode of artistic expression” as the guiding principle for its picks.
The Ghost Cat Anzu manga was serialized from 2006 to 2007 in Kodansha’s Comic Bon Bon and is collected into one tankoubon volume. Miyu Productions describes the film as:
Karin, 11 years old, is abandoned by her father at her grandfather’s house, the monk of a small town in the Japanese countryside. Her grandfather asks Anzu, his jovial and helpful although rather capricious ghost cat, to look after her. The meeting of their strong characters causes sparks, at least at the beginning…
Ghost Cat Anzu will open in Japan in July. The 2024 Director’s Fortnight will run from May 15 to 23, while Cannes will kick off on May 14 and conclude on the 25th,
Sources: @ghostcat_anzu, Catsuka