The Toronto
International Film Festival (TIFF) revealed that it will
present the international premiere of the film JUNK
WORLD, the long-awaited prequel to the stop-motion animated
film JUNK HEAD directed by Takahide Hori. The
screening will be part of the prestigious "Midnight Madness" section
of the event, which this year celebrates its 50th edition.
The
festival will take place between September 4 and 14 (UTC+2),
and the full schedule will be published on August 12. In Japan, the
film was officially released on June 13.
A dark
story set more than a thousand years earlier
According
to the official description of TIFF, JUNK WORLD transports
us 1,042 years before the events of JUNK HEAD. The
story begins with a surprise attack on a joint expedition
between humans and emancipated clones, triggering a chaotic fable of time
travel and parallel dimensions.
The
protagonist is the robot Robin, who had already appeared in the
original film under the name "Parton". In this prequel, humans and
artificial life forms investigate anomalies in an underground city that,
in theory, was uninhabited.
Independent
production driven by collective effort
JUNK
WORLD was
announced in 2023 and took three years of work by Hori, who
took on almost all creative responsibilities: directing, scripting,
character design, storyboarding, editing, music, modeling, and voice acting.
The project
had crowdfunding campaigns to acquire equipment and hire
additional staff. The first raised 13,663,200 yen (about $97,260 at
the current exchange rate), and the second 13,054,400 yen (approximately $92,926),
although production would move forward with the funds obtained regardless of
the amount.
The
legacy of JUNK HEAD and its impact globally
The
original JUNK HEAD film was distributed by Anime
Limited and had its final theatrical version in March
2021. This edition premiered in North America at the Fantasia
International Festival in Montreal in August of the same year. It also
received the Cigogne d'or Award for Best Animated Film at
the Strasbourg European Fantastic Film Festival.
The
original version of JUNK HEAD debuted in 2017 and has since
been considered a gem of stop-motion cinema for its unique visual style and
experimental narrative. Now, JUNK WORLD promises to expand
this dystopian universe even further with a story that dates back to its
origins.
