Kotatsu Japanese Animation Film Festival 2018 - Aberystwyth Line Up Announced

About Kotatsu

Kotatsu Japanese Animation Festival has been running since November 2010 at the Chapter Arts Centre in Cardiff, where it has brought Japanese anime and culture to a growing audience. In 2014 it expanded into a new venue, the Aberystwyth Arts Centre, where audiences deeper in Wales could watch some of the same great films that were seen in Cardiff. 2018 sees the festival include more for visitors such as animation workshops and master classes with leading animators from Japan as well as our continuing commitment to screening a variety of films.

This year the Kotatsu film festival is running on the following dates:

• Chapter Arts Centre - Cardiff - 28th to 30th September 2018
• Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Aberystwyth – October 20th - 21st, 2018

While the Cardiff line up has been out for a while, the Aberystwyth Line Up is now available!

Aberystwyth Line Up

The festival launches at the Aberystwyth Arts Centre on Saturday, October 20^th at 10:00, with a screening of the Studio Ghibli When Marnie Was There, making that the third film directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi at the festival. This will be followed by the family film Lu Over the Wall, a tale of a kid from Tokyo moving to a small coastal city and discovering that his “boring” new home has magical mermaids, good friends, and great music. This film screensat 12:30 before the cinematic delights finish with a 15:00 screening of Psychic School Wars, a beautifully animated adaptation of a well-known Japanese sci-fi tale of a mysterious exchange student with dangerous powers that is sure to delight a wide audience.

The Kotatsu raffle will be held throughout Saturday with goods from Japan on offer to people who take part.

Sunday, October 21^st opens with Mamoru Hosoda’s latest eagerly-anticipated title, Mirai, which is a magical tale of the time-travelling antics.

The story takes place in Yokohama and follows Kun, a young boy who was the centre of attention until his baby sister, Mirai, was born. Feeling resentment he finds himself able to cope with the changes when visited by various members of his family, including a grown-up version of Mirai who travels from the future. Hosoda was inspired by his own experiences of being a father in a family where a newborn took the attention of the parents away from the elder sibling. The film got its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival and will be screened at the BFI London Film Festival and Kotatsu is proud to be bringing it to Wales when it screens in Aberystwyth at 13:45.

The next film to follow is the emotionally powerful drama, Fireworks at 15:35, where audiences will be taken into an intense relationship between teenagers during a memorable summer. With characters voiced by the hottest talent in live-action Japanese cinema and with a script based on the work of Shunji Iwai (The Murder Case of Hana & Alice) this will prove to be an emotional show-stopper. 

The final day of Kotatsu 2018 closes with a screening of the immensely popular Attack on Titan: The Roar of Awakening, which takes audiences back into the thrilling and gruelling fight for humanity’s survival in a world full of man-eating giants.

Venue Details

Aberystwyth Arts Centre – October 20th - 21st, 2018
Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Aberystwyth University, Penglais Campus, Aberystwyth, Ceredigion, SY23 3DE

Box Office: 01970 62 32 32 email: artstaff@aber.ac.uk