A feast of new anime coming to the 10th Waterloo Festival for Animated Cinema

by Chris MaGee

We really are spoiled here in Ontario, the province we (well, most of us) here at the Pow-Wow call home here in Canada. Not only do we enjoy having the world-renowned Ottawa International Animation Festival on our doorstep, but we also have events like the Waterloo Festival for Animated Cinema to enjoy as well. And we all know that where there is an animation festival there is also animation from japan to be had! This year's offering of the Waterloo Festival for Animated Cinema, the festival's 10th, features two feature length films that fans of anime in Southern Ontario will not want to miss.

First up is Makoto Shinkai's latest feature "Children Who Chase Lost Voices From Deep Below" (above). As we've reported before Shinkai, the man who brought us such beautiful and melancholy films as "Voices from a Distant Star" and "5 Centimetres Per Second", is bringing us a story that lives up to his reputation as "the next Hayao Miyazaki". "Children Who Chase Lost Voices From Deep Below" follows a young girl who spends her time listening to a mysterious crystal radio set given to her by her father. One day she encounters a boy who leaves her life as quickly as he arrives. The girl sets out to not only find this boy, but the source of the radio broadcasts that she has been receiving. You can catch on Sunday, November 20th at 1:00PM.

Next is a film that is new to us here, Jun Shishido's "The Princess and the Pilot" (check out the trailer below). Produced by Madhouse, the same studio that brought us the recent hit "Summer Wars", "The Princess and the Pilot" is set in an alternative reality in which a pilot goes on a 12,000 mile air mission to save a young women, "as beautiful as five thousand beams of sunlight.” The mission is fraught with danger though, as a war is raging across the globe. "The Princess and the Pilot" will be screening on Saturday, November 19th at 6:30PM.

One thing anime fans in Toronto will be interested to hear is that this year's Waterloo Festival for Animated Cinema is opening on Thursday, November 17th at 6:30PM with a film that recently screened at the 15th annual Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival -- "Fullmetal Alchemist: The Sacred Star of Milos".

You can check out all that the 10th annual Waterloo Festival for Animated Cinema, running from November 17th to the 20th at the Chrysalids Theatre (137 Ontario Street North, Kitchener), by visiting their website here.