Yahoo Lifestyle Charades Boards ‘Your Name’ Artist Yoshitoshi Shinomiya’s Feature Debut ‘A New Dawn’ (EXCLUSIVE)
Charades, the thriving sales company behind the Oscar-nominated “Flow” and “Memoir of a Snail,” has boarded “A New Dawn,” the promising feature debut of Yoshitoshi Shinomiya, the anime artist of Japanese box office smash hit “Your Name.”
Inspired by the changing Japanese landscape after the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011, “A New Dawn” unwinds inside an inactive fireworks factory that is about to go into administrative action. For the past four years, young Keitaro has lived inside the derelict structure, chasing the illusion of a father who vanished years before. The location used to be nestled in a lush forest, but the surrounding area has recently been redeveloped by the city, which covered the land with solar panels. Only a scant bit of greenery around the factory remains amongst the sea of panels.
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With the end of his makeshift home just around the corner, Keitaro commits to launching a firework his father left behind before the building is repossessed. He recruits his brother and a childhood friend to help close this chapter of his life and bring about a new dawn.
“A New Dawn” is produced by Tokyo-based Asmik Ace (“Inu-Oh,” ” Tekkonkinkreet”) and France’s Miyu Productions (“Chicken for Linda,” “Dozens of Norths”). Charades and Miyu previously collaborated on “Chicken For Linda” which Charades sold around the world.
Shinomiya is an established anime artist whose recent work include “Your Name,” a teen fantasy (directed by Makoto Shinkai) which was released last year and became the second highest-grossing Japanese film of all time by grossing nearly $357 million worldwide.
In an interview with Variety, Shinomiya said that the idea for “A New Dawn” first came to him back in 2016. “One day, on the way to my workshop, my child looked out the car window and cried out, ‘I can see the sea!’” the director recalled. “I realized that the solar panels my child saw through the trees actually looked like the surface of the water. At that moment, I thought, ‘This is a new scenery of Japan, and the next generation will capture it with this kind of sensitivity, though I saw such landscape as something negative.’ I felt that moment was very meaningful to me, and I believe it was the beginning of this project.”
Charades, which has become a leading force in the world of indie animation, handled features by Japanese masters before, notably Mamoru Hosoda with “Mirai.” This year, the Paris-based company handles two of the five best animated feature nominees at the Oscars: Gints Zilbalodis’ “Flow” and Adam Elliot’s “Memoir of a Snail.” “Flow” is also making history as the first animated feature that is also nominated for best international feature film.
Charades will introduce the project to buyers at the European Film Market in Berlin.
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