Production I.G announces the production of a new animated feature film, A Letter to Momo (original title: Momo e no Tegami), the highly anticipated second directorial effort by world-acclaimed anime director Hiroyuki Okiura (Jin-Roh). Supported by a top-class team of skilled creators and requiring seven years of work for its completion, A Letter to Momo will combine state-of-the-art traditional hand drawn animation with heart-warming, emotional storytelling for children and adults alike. The movie will be theatrically distributed in Japan in 2012 by Kadokawa Shoten.

Story
Momo is a young girl who grew up in a big city.
However, following the premature loss of her father, she has to move with her mother to the old family house on a remote island. Here, time seems to have stopped: old wooden buildings, holy shrines surrounded by trees, fields painstakingly carved out from steep hills… and no shopping mall.

Needless to say, Momo is not too overenthusiastic about this new environment.
Most of all, her heart is still feeling uneasy about an unfinished letter left by her father. A letter that contained only two words: “Dear Momo…”

What was dad going to say?

One day, exploring the attic of her new big house, Momo finds a dusty and worn out book.
And from that moment, something really unexpected starts happening around her…

Main Staff
Director / Screenplay / Storyboard: Hiroyuki Okiura (Jin-Roh)
Key Animation Supervisor: Masashi Ando (Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away)
Key Animators: Toshiyuki Inoue (Tokyo Godfathers), Ei Inoue (The Cat Returns), Takeshi Honda (Evangelion: 2.22 You Can (Not) Advance), Tetsuya Nishio (The Sky Crawlers), Hiroyuki Aoyama (Summer Wars)
Background Art: Hiroshi Ono (Kiki’s Delivery Service)
Animation: Production I.G (Ghost in the Shell, Jin-Roh)

About Hiroyuki Okiura
Born in 1966 in Osaka Prefecture, Okiura is considered a natural talent in the world of animation, having started his professional career at the age of 16 with no academic background. His credits include some of the most sophisticated animated feature films produced in Japan: Akira (1988, key animator), Patlabor: The Movie (1989, key animator), Patlabor 2: The Movie (1993, assistant animation supervisor), Memories (1995, key animator), Ghost in the Shell (1995, character design, animation supervisor, layout artist), Cowboy Bebob The Movie: Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door (2001, opening credit sequence director and key animator) and Palm d’Or-nominated Innocence (2004, character designer, animation supervisor). Okiura made his feature film directorial debut in 2000 with Jin-Roh, that was selected for the 49th Berlin International Film Festival and won several recognitions in Japan and the world. A Letter to Momo is his second directorial effort after more than a decade-long hiatus.

Chris Arrant

Latest News from Cartoon Brew