Inch-High Samurai

A wordless short homage to the maestro of pittura metafisica.

A series of 16 "short stories" created by the creator's group Images Forum.

Abstract forms animated in drawings.

Psychedelic animation that impresses with eyeballs and other motifs.

Photos taken with pinhole camera, sky + clouds. Swirling animation like smoke against a black background.

Circles printed on white paper. Animation frenzy as music becomes more erotic/erratic.

Images of the sea and clouds seen from the top of the mountain, the candles of the Tibetan temple, etc., and a chaotic psychedelic animation are juxtaposed.

Hands / flicker / morphing animation suggests sexual organs in a frantic dance.

Set in a cave imagined as an air-raid shelter, images of the surrounding trees are painted over directly on the film. Vivid colors intermixed with the sound of wartime radio communications and bombing create a harmonious composition of documentary and animation.

By the maker of Yellow Night. Also an exercise in the storyless and meaningless description of a drawn journey through the subconscious. Hallucination as a cheerful firework display. Made with style and skill, because nonchalance obviously has to be conquered. (IFFR)

An experiment concerning the attempts at creating a ‘moving image’ long before the invention of cinema. A re-experiencing of the history of ‘magic with light’ unfolds through the use of various devices and techniques, including flip-book animation and Muybridge’s photographs in motion zoopraxiscope. (IFFR)

Begun in 8mm film, but completed in 16mm following the purchase of a new camera, this work continues with the psychedelic and anti-war themes, while moments provide the seeds of his later abstract exploration.

'There is a fusuma (paper sliding door) work based on the Hannya Shingyo (Prajna-paramita Hrdaya Sutram) by woodblock print artist Shikou Munakata. He wrote the sutra in one go without any rough drafts or scketches and the result is a very powerful and compelling work. Ever since I first saw this fusuma I have had a special interest in the Hannya Shingyo... ' (extract of the commentary by Keiichi Tanaami)

Following on from Shelter (1981), the setting is again an air-raid shelter. Close-up images of trees are dissected and reformed abstractly. The film culminates with images of elderly survivors of the war in another example of Aihara’s unique blending of documentary storytelling with abstract illustration.

A compendium of independent Japanese animation, featuring a wide range of experimental techniques from drawn animation to pixilation.