Brazil’s prolific animation house Pinguim Content, which is best known for TV shows such as Earth to Luna!, Fishtronaut, Tata, and Ping and Friends and the movie Tarsilinha will be taking its new feature project, My Grandfather is a Nihonjin, to the Cannes Film Festival. A 10-minute excerpt of the project will be screened at the special showcase “Ventana Sur Goes to Cannes” on Monday, May 20th at Palais K at 10 a.m. Prior to the screening Celia Catunda, Pinguim Content’s co-founder and director of My Grandfather is a Nihonjin, will introduce the film with a brief pitch on what Pinguim are looking for with the project.
The beautiful 2D animated film centers on Noboru, a 10-year-old Brazilian boy who turns to his Japanese immigrant grandfather, Hideo, to investigate his family’s history and heritage. Though initially reluctant to talk about his struggles in assimilating into a new country, Hideo finds that in sharing his experiences, he finally begins to connect more closely with Noboru.
Written by Rita Catunda and directed by Celia Catunda, My Grandfather is a Nihonjin is adapted from an award-winning novel by Brazilian author Oscar Nakasato. The art of Nihonjin is inspired by the work of Oscar Oiwa, a Brazilian-Japanese contemporary artist, whose paintings express this mix of cultures. It offers a timely look into themes of immigration, family ties, assimilation and working to preserve slices of people’s respective cultures.
“We are thrilled that My Grandfather is a Nihonjin is included in this special showcase at such a prestigious event,” says Celia Catunda. “We are very proud of the film, which is exquisitely animated and deals with some important themes about immigration and cultural identity, at a time when intolerance towards migration movements is so evident. We are excited by this fantastic opportunity to talk to so many people from the industry about the project and show them how it’s shaping up.”
Catunda will also be at Marché du Film from its opening on 14th May until 20th May to meet distributors, sales agents and other interested parties to talk further about the film, which is due for completion later in 2024 with a release date around spring 2025. My Grandfather is a Nihonjin also participated in last year’s Animation! Work in Progress section at Ventana Sur, Latin America’s most important audiovisual content market.
For more info, visit https://pinguimcontent.wixsite.com/tvpg
