JIN-ROH Director Returns With A LETTER TO MOMO

Eleven years ago Hiroyuki Okiura made the step to directing after years of filling support roles and the result was what I consider to be one of the greatest anime features ever made, the Mamoru Oshii scripted Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade.

The film screened in the Berlin Film Festival and won international acclaim and it seemed that Okiura would soon climb to the top of the animation world. But not so. From Jin-Roh's completion in 2000 until now Okiura has filled the director's chair only once, that being for the title sequence of the 2001 Cowboy Bebop feature film. But now he's back with his sophomore feature and he's bringing a hugely impressive support staff with him.

Production I.G announces the production of a new animated feature film, A Letter to Momo (original title: Momo e no Tegami ももへの手紙), 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.

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)