Director Mizue Mirai

Director Mizue Mirai

水江未来監督

Director Mirai Mizue is known for producing numerous abstract animated short films and some of his work was presented at international film festivals such as Berlin, Venice, and Brussels. His art is very different from the typical Japanese “anime” like Ghibli with big-eyed cute girls.  “My film is very weird” he laughs.

His film is a colorful, non-narrative, and abstract inspiration giving life to actual figures.  There are many micro organisms, cells, or geometric figures, but no humans. The hand-painted pictures are mainly drawn with acrylic pens. It is set to music that varies from simple electronic to more sophisticated acoustic orchestral sounds.

He was born in 1981, grew up watching Godzillla movies and Ultraman TV series.  He says “Ultraman was the hero and always looked the same, but there were many bad monsters in each episode”.  Naturally he became more obsessed with the monsters and couldn’t wait to see the next bizarre-looking creatures every week.  In the 80s there were no CGs, but instead there were stop motions, mirror-folded images, clay animations and real stunts who dressed like monsters.  “There was always something bizarre in the picture, especially those imaginative figures, which caught my attention” the director explains.  He has been taking art lessons from his childhood and studied graphic design at Japan’s Tama Art University.  There he was deeply inspired by the work of Director Jan Švankmajerm, and decided to make films.

In 2008, he visited Barcelona where he saw Joan Miró’s paintings and was touched by its playfulness.  “It was so pure, like children’s joy”, he recalls.  He then thought: ” If Miró made an animated film, what would it look like?”. This idea was an inspiration to further develop his animation.  Although it is much easier to draw lines with fine pens than thick crayons, he sometimes uses crayons to feel the child within himself. He draws 24 pictures to create 1 second of film and repeats this every day for 365 days, like 24 pictures represent 24 hours.  “Everyday is different.  Life is composed of different days” he smiles.