Japan Awards Iran animation

Iranian short animation ‘The Fourth Wall’ has won an award at the Japan Media Arts Festival.

Written and made by Mahboubeh Kalaee, the 10-minute award-winning animated piece grabbed the Best Animation Award at the 25th edition of the event.

Produced by the Documentary and Experimental Film Center in Tehran, the director has mixed animated objects with hand-painted illustrations and filmed them using a roving camera. The result is an innovative method that brilliantly blurs the lines between fiction and reality.

In ‘The Fourth Wall’, home and family, relationships, desires, wishes and everything are summarized in a kitchen. A stuttering boy is alone playing with his imaginations.

“A stuttering boy transforms an Iranian kitchen into a fantastic cosmos.  The father’s body becomes a refrigerator, the mother’s belly a washing machine whose spin cycle gives birth to a screaming baby. Even birds on tiles and detergents have a surprising life of their own. This exuberant animation, dotted with real-life elements – fried eggs, broken plates, chess pieces – develops a subtle wit, ironizing ingrained family patterns,” a synopsis for the animation reads.

The ‘The Fourth Wall’ was screened at several global events, including the BFI London Film Festival in the UK, the Annecy International Animation Film Festival in France, and the Animest International Animation Film Festival in Romania.

The Japan Media Arts Festival is an annual festival held since 1997 by Japan's Agency for Cultural Affairs.

The festival begins with an open competition and culminates with the awarding of several prizes and an exhibition.

Its awards are given in four categories, including Art, Entertainment, Animation, and Manga.

The winners of various sections were announced on March 13, 2022.

FM/FM