The recent films Drive My Car and Burning, two exquisite screen adaptations of Haruki Murakami’s fiction, delve into unsettling enigmas and longings, spun around performances of gripping subtlety. As a work of animation, Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman can’t plumb behavioral depths and tics in quite the same way. But animation is an apt medium for exploring another aspect of Murakami’s work, his magic-realist spin on existential angst. Pierre Földes, a composer and visual artist at the helm of his first feature, has made something that mixes the painterly and the stylized, a film that’s lovely, mysterious and also, at times, fittingly odd.
The writer-director finds connective tissue among the various storylines in the idea of an earthquake as a psychic rupture, shaking loose the dissatisfactions and yearnings that are usually under wraps, keeping people shut off and stuck. Földes’ multiple roles here include writing the score,...
The writer-director finds connective tissue among the various storylines in the idea of an earthquake as a psychic rupture, shaking loose the dissatisfactions and yearnings that are usually under wraps, keeping people shut off and stuck. Földes’ multiple roles here include writing the score,...
- 4/14/2023
- by Sheri Linden
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
"No matter what you wish for, you can never be anything but yourself." The Match Factory has revealed an official promo trailer for an indie animated film titled Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman, marking the feature directorial debut of composer Pierre Földes. This premiered at the Annecy Film Festival and at TIFF this year, and has been released in France and Canada already, but nowhere else just yet. A lost cat, a giant talkative frog, and a tsunami help an unambitious bank employee, his frustrated wife, and a schizophrenic accountant to save Tokyo from an earthquake and find a meaning to their lives. It's based on the Haruki Murakami book of the same name. This sounds like a fascinating animated existential tale of identity and philosophy. The film's initial voice cast includes Marcello Arroyo, Michael Czyz, Zag Dorison, Pierre Földes, Jesse Noah Gruman, Katharine King So, John Vamvas, Nadia Verrucci, and Shoshana Wilder.
- 11/11/2022
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
An early 2023 UK-Ireland release is planned.
UK distributor Modern Films has picked up Annecy premiere Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman for the UK and Ireland from German sales agent The Match Factory.
It is the directorial debut of US-born French composer Pierre Földes, who also wrote the screenplay and score, and is based on a collection of short stories by Japanese writer Haruki Murakami. Modern Films released Cannes premiere Drive My Car in the UK and Ireland in November 2021, also a Murakami adaptation.
The animation follows the lives of multiple characters as they navigate existence after the 2011 tsunami in Japan, including a bank employee without ambition,...
UK distributor Modern Films has picked up Annecy premiere Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman for the UK and Ireland from German sales agent The Match Factory.
It is the directorial debut of US-born French composer Pierre Földes, who also wrote the screenplay and score, and is based on a collection of short stories by Japanese writer Haruki Murakami. Modern Films released Cannes premiere Drive My Car in the UK and Ireland in November 2021, also a Murakami adaptation.
The animation follows the lives of multiple characters as they navigate existence after the 2011 tsunami in Japan, including a bank employee without ambition,...
- 11/10/2022
- by Mona Tabbara
- ScreenDaily
Abe Applebaum used to be loved. Back when he was a kid detective — think Encyclopedia Brown, Nancy Drew, and the Hardy Boys, with a generous dose of street smarts to boot — Abe was the star of his small town, a whiz kid with charm and pluck and all the other good stuff necessary to solve relatively benign crimes. Someone stole the school fundraising cash? Abe will find out who did it! Worried about the light vandalism plaguing picture perfect downtown? Abe’s your guy! But what happens when a kid detective grows up?
Such is the clever conceit of Evan Morgan’s feature directorial debut, “The Kid Detective,” which picks up decades after Abe’s fledgling career was felled by a truly heinous crime. Oh, Abe is still a detective — he’s even got the same office, just with the “kid” scratched off the old-school frosted glass door, he’s...
Such is the clever conceit of Evan Morgan’s feature directorial debut, “The Kid Detective,” which picks up decades after Abe’s fledgling career was felled by a truly heinous crime. Oh, Abe is still a detective — he’s even got the same office, just with the “kid” scratched off the old-school frosted glass door, he’s...
- 10/15/2020
- by Kate Erbland
- Indiewire
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