Animation Division
Excellence Award
The Old Crocodile
YAMAMURA Koji
© Yamamura Animation
Profile
YAMAMURA Koji
Born in Nagoya, 1964. Creating short animation films with wide variety of techniques. Mt.Head won 6 Grand Prix at Annecy, Zagreb, Hiroshima and other international animation festivals. Also nominated in the Academy Awards. A visiting professor at Tokyo Zokei University.
Award Reason
This work is an undeniable masterpiece. An old crocodile lying by the Nile has lived for hundreds of years and suffers from rheumatism which has made it difficult for him to move, and he is seen as a burden by his clan. One day, the crocodile suddenly conceives a trip to search for a place for him to live and swims down the Nile and enters into the Red Sea which is vast. What does the old crocodile see at the end of his eccentric journey? The director YAMAMURA Koji shaped the picture book of the same title which originated in France into an animation filled with cool and bitter humor. From the simple picture images and sound from which distracting presentations are all cleared, we feel YAMAMURA's extraordinary competence which attracts the most attention in the world. This is an animation which has personality.