The mind-expanding Georama returns to Tokyo next month for a new edition. Taking place over three weeks, Georama is a collection of events based around independent animation.
This year, the festival highlights four American guests — Don Hertzfeldt, David OReilly, Bruce Bickford, and Caleb Wood — who will be joined by guests from the Japanese animation scene including Ryo Hirano, Nu-Q, Saigo-no-Shudan, Masanobu Hiraoka, and Manami Wakai.
The main theme of the festival is “expansion and deviation from the notion of animation,” according to its organizer Nobuaki Doi, who is also the director of another Japanese festival, New Chitose Airport International Animation Festival. Doi tells Cartoon Brew that it’s often difficult to discover a wide range of global and independent animation in Japan because of the overwhelming popularity of anime, and Georama’s goal is to introduce local audiences to a broader view of what animation can do as an art form.