THE MAGIC FOX (Okon joruri)
Japan, 1982 - 26'
Direction: Tadanari Okamoto / Screenplay: Tadanari Okamoto / Producer: SAKURA MOTION PICTURES CO, LTD., ECHO PRODUCTIONS / Cast: NAGAOKA Teruko, ONODERA Kahoru, KIMURA Tomiho, GOTÔ Tetsuo / Cinematography: Osame Maruike / Editor: AIZAWA Hisako / Animation: FUJIMORI Masayo, NAGASAKI Nozomi, YOSHIDA Satoru, WATANABE Masako, NAKAJIMA Keiko, YOKOGAWA Takako / Music: TAKAHASHI Yûjirô, KATADA Kisaku, NAKAGAWA Yoshio / Scenography: WAKASA Hiromi, MISAWA Hiromichi, WATANABE Seiko
An old witch doctor struggling with her craft invokes the spirit of a magical fox and together they help heal the many sick people around her village. Unfortunately people begin to suspect the origin of her new found voice and things turn for the worse.
THE RESTAURANT OF MANY ORDERS (Chumon no oi ryoriten)
Japan, 1991, 19’
Direction: Tadanari Okamoto, Kihachiro Kawamoto / Screenplay: Kenji Miyazawa / Producer: Junko Fukuma, Satoko Okamoto / Cinematography: Osame Maruike / Music: Ryouhei Hirose
This animation short film inspired from the homonymous story by Kenji Miyazawa. Realized in 1988 by Tadanari Okamoto, with the collaboration of the animator and chiseller Reiko Ōkuyama, this short film was conceived as a study for a possibile feature film with the use of an original technique which the animations were obtained using copper calcography. With the sudden death of Okamoto in 1990 the work stopped and the short film was completed in 1991 by his friend and art partner Kihachirō Kawamoto
Tadanari Okamoto (1932 - 1990) was a Japanese independent animator. From 1965 he completed at least 37 short subject films in a wide variety of mediums, eight of which have been awarded the Ōfuji Noburō Award at the Mainichi Film Awards (more than any other director in the history of the prize) and his films have altogether earned at least 24 other awards internationally.
After working at MOM Productions, known for its stop motion work for Rankin/Bass, he founded his own production company, Echo Incorporated, in 1964, and soon after made a trip to visit Czech animator and director Břetislav Pojar. One of his last films, Metropolitan Museum (Metoroporitanmyūjiamu, 1984), was commissioned and broadcast across the nation by NHK, the national public broadcasting organization of Japan, as one of their Minna no Uta interstitial programs.
