This film is not open to the public as it is in the process of submission to the film festival competition.

Awards:
Ottawa International Animation Festival 2023 – Best VR Awards
Annecy Film Festival 2024 – Official Selection
ADC 103rd Annual Awards – Animation Official Selection
Kaohsiung Film Festival XR Dreamland – Official Selection
Beijing Film Festival- Official Selection
Beyond the Frame Festival 2023 – Official Selection
Lumiere Japan Awards 2023 – Special Award
Asia Digital Art Award FUKUOKA 2023 Asia Digital Art Award/The Minister of METI Award (General Category / Entertainment Category)
Cinequest Film Festival 2024- Cinequest Award Winner
ANIFILM 2024 – Official Selection
The Fine Arts Film Festival 2024- Official Selection
Philadelphia Independent Film Festival- Official Selection
The 29th ifva Awards – Media Arts Category Silver Award

Synopsis

What lives in a lonely boy’s ear? And why a boy’s ear…?
A lonely boy dug in the dirt every day and collected what he found in a cookie tin.
In the boy’s notebook, he recorded the lonely voices of the objects he collected. Inside the boy’s ears live four musicians and two Venus’ Flower Basket Shrimps, who play and dance in response to his tears.
He shook a cookie tin filled with found objects in return. In this way, the boy grew up.
The boy grew up and became a salesman selling hearing aids and no longer picked up lonely voices or shed tears. One day, fascinated by a handmade bird brooch saw on the TV news that was found in a Japanese American internment camp, he set out on a journey to collect lonely voices again. What would he find there eventually?

【Director Koji Yamamura】

Koji Yamamura was nominated for the 75th Academy Awards for “Mt. Head” (02) and won 6 Grand Prix including the Annecy Grand Prix. Received the Medal with Purple Ribbon. Professor at Tokyo University of the Arts.

【Comment from the Director 】
This is my first attempt at both VR and 3D CG expression, but by fusing the worldviews of Ms. Yoko Ogawa and myself, we have created a new image that can only be experienced in VR, taking advantage of the characteristics of 360-degree images. Please enjoy this journey into the abyss of memory and self that transcends time and space.

【Original Author Yoko Ogawa】

Born in Okayama City Japan in 1962; Graduated from Waseda University, Faculty of Literature , Department of Literature and Arts.
Debuted in 1988 with ‘When Butterflies Break’, which won the Kaien Newcomer Literature Award.
Major books include ‘Pregnancy Calendar’, ‘The Doctor’s Beloved Equation’, ‘Secret Crystals’, ‘Kotori’ and ‘The Stage That Sleeps in Your Palm’. Her latest book is a collection of essays entitled The Beauty of the Body, published by Bungeishunju-sha.

【Comment From the Original Author】
I wasn’t consciously aware of it, but I think it has a universal message for people of all nationalities, all ideologies, all ages and all kinds of people. There is a world here for the viewer. I don’t want to say that you should receive the common message we have put in here, but I hope that this work will revive the memories that are important to everyone who sees it, that lie deep within their ears, and that they will be able to confront and affirm the loneliness that they feel they have no choice but to live with. I hope it is a work that can affirm that.

【Lead Voice Actor Masaki Okada】

Born 15 August 1989 in Tokyo.
Recent films include Arc (21′), Drive My Car (21′), CUBE: Once You Enter, It’s the Last (21′), Drama: Tomoko Ozuida and Her Three Ex-husbands (21′), The Travel Nurse (22′), Stage: No Story In This World (21′). Glass Zoo (21′), etc. The film ‘One Second Ahead of Him’ released on 7 July and the film ‘Yutori desuka nanika international’ on 13 October. He also narrates ‘SWITCH Interview Tatsujin ‘ (E-TV), which airs every Friday.

Voice Acting
Man: Daman Mills
Boy: Nicholas Young

Director: Koji Yamamura / Original Author: Yoko Ogawa
Screenplay: Yoko Ogawa, Koji Yamamura
Producer: Kenji Ishimaru
Executive Producer: Yoshinobu Noma
Sound Director: Masataka Ota
Music: Koji Ueno
CG Director: Gee Yeung
Lead Unity Engineer: Jorge Pedrero Reyna
Line Producer: Yumiko Kano
Production Manager: Yui Tamanaha
Planning and Production: Kodansha VR Lab, Ltd.