"The Bridge" is inspired by the poignant story of the Siberian Children, a group of youngsters rescued by the Japanese Red Cross Society following the 1917 revolution in Russia. The film narrates the tale through the eyes of Janek, a 10-year-old Polish boy grappling with deep trauma, who reluctantly becomes the leader of a group of orphaned children teetering on the edge of starvation and who, along with his peers, finds his new life in Japan.
Izumi Yoshida, a doctoral student at the Łódź Film School and a lecturer at the Władysław Strzemiński Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź, has garnered recognition for her debut work "Kinki," which has been nominated for various festivals and received multiple awards, including a prize at the Split Film Festival in Croatia.
The Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia, the largest animated film festival in Asia, has been an annual event since its establishment in 1999 by Japanese actor Tetsuya Bessho. The festival holds accreditation from the U.S. Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, allowing it to nominate five films, including animations, for the following year's Oscars.
This year's festival, held from June 6 to 26, showcased a diverse selection of 270 short films out of 5,215 submissions from 120 countries and regions.
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Source: PAP