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To feel the subtleties of these different human relationships, it felt appropriate to use a fantasy world, rather than live-action or real-world animation. There’s even that aspect of the mother and son’s love, so there’s a weird kind of tension there, and if it was based in the real world, it would probably be a little too weird. It’s because these relationships that she portrays are so raw and real. In a lot of the interviews that she’s had so far, she’s spoken a lot about the fantasy world, and the reason she picked non-reality. What were her inspirations in crafting the film’s fantasy world? It seems that Mari put a lot of thought into constructing a unique universe for the film.
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It wasn’t really so much about society, as it was about the humanity of director Okada, and her personal story. Another big theme was how the relationships between people change, as we grow older. That was the biggest theme, I think, for this one. It’s largely about a character that is left behind by society, experiencing time at a different pace than society as a whole. It was really just her upbringing that was the biggest influence on this story. She wasn’t necessarily trying to push that. I don’t think she actually consciously thought about the fact that she’s a woman, and that this was sort of a female-centric story. We went around the world, touring with this film, and we got a lot of questions for Mari, because she’s a female director.
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What was Mari hoping to explore, thematically, with this film?
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'Spider-Man' Producers Phil Lord & Christopher Miller Bring Miles Morales To Big Screen In Spectacular Style Eleven Arts “The competition is really fierce.” In close collaboration with Okada, the producer helped bring to fruition a visionary work, that could only enliven the form. “Looking at the market, fantasy is a genre that has a really high hurdle,” he explains. “A lot of really amazing talents came together for this film, so my first question was, how do we get them to all recognize her as a director, when she has such little experience?” In addition to this resistance, Horikawa contended with the realities of the anime market, working for a long time to secure a green light. “It was such a big project that a lot of people weren’t sure that she could do it, so there was some resistance met there, and that was also a challenge to push through,” Horikawa reflects. An ambitious anime that conjures up a singular, fantastical world, the Oscar-shortlisted feature centers on Maquia, an immortal girl who takes a newborn baby boy out of dire circumstances, raising him as her own, and watching the relationship blossom into myriad complexities over the years.Ĭertainly, Maquia was an ambitious project for any director to take on, and particularly for a fledgling helmer. After working with screenwriter Mari Okada for a number of years, producer Kenji Horikawa needed to learn to work with the artist in a different way, as she set out to make her directorial debut with Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms.