_{Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman by Pierre Földes}

A few days after the tsunami of 2011, three Tokyo inhabitants respond to the disaster in their own way. Each of the characters is at a psychological impasse, albeit unaware of it. The distraught Kyoko leaves her loving husband Komura who agrees to deliver a mysterious parcel to two young women in the north of Japan, ending up with one of them in a love motel.

Meanwhile Komura’s stressed work colleague Katagiri is convinced by a man-sized and highly articulate frog that only they, together, can save Tokyo from another earthquake, brought on by the awakening of a giant subterranean worm. The film is reminiscent of the best of Studio Ghibli in its magical realist expression of the workings of the psyche and its thrilling and audacious visual palette.

When Dutch producer Joost de Vries received the script for Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman from Hungarian producer Viktória Petrányi (Proton Cinema), he knew immediately that he wanted to be involved, not least because the film was based on six short stories by Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami.

“The writer of the script and intended director [Pierre Földes], had written the script on spec, made a short animation clip with it and had send it to Murakami and his agent, and had actually managed to secure a license to make the film,” explains de Vries. “What I found so incredibly exciting is that the six short stories were woven into a feature length script story that truly feels like it was written by Murakami himself.”

But what was also abundantly clear to the Dutch producer was that the proposition needed very careful and expert packaging. So he approached French producer Tom Dercourt of Cinéma Defacto who in turn enlisted the services (and considerable talents) of animation specialists Miyu Productions, headed up by Emmanuel-Alain Raynal and Pierre Bausaron. This was to be Miyu’s debut feature.

“It needed somebody who was extremely good at pulling together the complex international financing, and it needed an extremely good studio. With Cinéma Defacto and Miyu we had that base to go forward,” says De Vries.

The Netherlands involvement was significant with three young and highly talented Dutch animators (Marlijn van Nuenen, Thomas Bruinsma and Arnold Berssenbrugge) working on the film, although not in the Paris-based Miyu studios given the pandemic restrictions of the time.

The Netherlands is gaining a strong international reputation within the animation sector, and so the opportunity to be involved on a feature animation of such scope and ambition was too much to pass on. The Film Fund therefore gave the project €150,000 in minority co-production support. “They were very supportive because they saw a huge opportunity for new Dutch talent to be working on a picture like this,” says de Vries. “It is been a standpoint of the Fund to stimulate that.”

Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman is co-produced by An Original Picture. Sales are handled by The Match Factory. It is supported by the Netherlands Film Fund. For more information on Toronto International Film Festival 2022, click here.
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This interview was originally released during Annecy Animation Film Festival 2022. It has been updated for the Toronto International Film Festival 2022.