Talking About "Talking About Amy"
The animated short film, Talking about Amy, is important to us here at Yuricon. The film talks about multi-talented Rica Takashima (aka Amy), the author of the amazing manga Rica ‘tte Kanji!?, through a variety of mediums such as clay animation, paintings, and drawings.
The filmmaker Yoriko Murakami and Amy have been friends since they first met at Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, widely considered the best art school in Japan. Here at Yuricon, you probably know Rika Takashima (aka Amy) as a manga artist with her well rounded, happy-go-lucky style in both her drawings and her stories. However, she is also a contemporary artist with a social awareness that makes her quite radical. Her work questions our preconceived family and gender stereotypes through her creative, original and interactive street-friendly art forms. These have been well-received throughout Japan and also here in New York City.
Murakami is known for her direction of commercial artwork for companies such as KRAFT and NEC. She graduated from University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts with a Masters degree in Fine Arts. Her storytelling expertise is graced by her contemplative nature and by the filmmaker’s unique perspective on her courageous friend. Murakami is our tour guide through the looking glass between the worlds of “life” and “art,” exploring the full spectrum, and full circle effect, of connection and disconnection, of alienation and assimilation as they alternately influence and inform one another.
Yuricon has supported this film since its 2007 screening at Yuri-sai in Newark, NJ. Meanwhile, this film has been successful in many film festivals worldwide. Talking about Amy has been included on the DVD Animating Reality by A MILLION MOVIES A MINUTE, is currently up on line if you want to check it out.
http://millionmoviesaminute.com/animating-reality/index.html
The trailer can be viewed here: http://youtu.be/03ZaeQURsxs
“Talking about Amy” is one of the best animated pieces I’ve ever seen; very memorable and thought-provoking. It was challenging and “outside the box” while still having a “kind and gentle” beauty to it; a rare combination.”
–Dan Duarte, journalist/screenwriter, Inside Kung Fu