Moonlit Night and Opal
2015 · 3m · Japan
Directed by ShiShi Yamazaki
Genres: animation, experimental
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, surreal
A Tokyo University of the Arts short film in which consciousness transcends time and space — the filmmaker describes becoming 'all the life forms existing' and merging with the universe in a dreamlike meditative state, presented as a prayer for the existence of heart and soul.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Tokyo Geidai work has a distinctive seriousness that Yamazaki deploys without irony here — the film just wants to dissolve you into the cosmos and has no interest in justifying that ambition. I find that commitment genuinely moving.
Tokyo University of the Arts, Koji Yamamura as chief producer — that's a strong pedigree. Sincere cosmological ambition without ironic protection is rare and difficult to pull off.
ShiShi Yamazaki out of the Yamamura program at Tokyo Geidai, working in earnest spiritual register without the protective irony — a cosmological prayer that risks sincerity and mostly earns it.