Memories Hidden in Darkness - Dreams of Various Shades

A wordless short homage to the maestro of pittura metafisica.

In Madonna, Tanaami employs his signature collage-style animation, combining pop art influences, retro aesthetics, and surrealistic motifs. The film explores themes of desire, fantasy, and memory, often referencing elements of post-war Japanese culture and American pop culture.

A short experimental animation by Keiichi Tanaami.

A joyfully psychedelic animation inspired by Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland.

An animation mixing hand-drawn and cut-out techniques depicting the daily rituals of weekday morning that is occasionally interrupted by flights of fantasy delivered in stroboscopic flashes. Showing scenes of brushing teeth and face washing, Tanaami describes the film to be like a self-portrait on his favorite day of the week.

A trippy pop-art collage of phallic objects, naked women and American icons, most notably Elvis Presley.

An erotic pop animation seemingly symbolizing his youth when his soul was taken by the Hollywood actress.

A psychedelic collage of wartime stock footage and family photos, suggesting an underlying message of peace.

A kaleidoscope of painted cartoonish images including an obscene mouse. Born in 1936 in Tokyo, Keiichi Tanaami is one of the leading pop artists of postwar Japan, and has been active as multi-genre artist since the 1960s as a graphic designer, illustrator, video artist and fine artist.

A short film by Keiichi Tanaami.

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)

A collaborative film between Keiichi Tanaami and Nobuhiro Aihara with a new interpretation of the traditional Japanese folk tale.

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)

Blending psychedelic animation with haunting music. Centred around a black cat, it explores themes of misfortune and the uncanny through dreamlike visuals and Maki Asakawa’s melancholic song, "Fushiawase to Iu Na no Neko".

A short animared film by Tanaami Keiichi.