New Release: Franz Kafka’s A Country Doctor and Other Fantastic Films by Koji Yamamura DVD

By
Laurence
– September 25, 2010Find Others: DVD, New Release, News, Special InterestGet More: ,

Zeitgeist/KimStim issued the animation collection Franz Kafka’s A Country Doctor and Other Fantastic Films by Koji Yamamura on DVD on Dec. 7, 2010, for a suggested retail price of $29.95.

The collection includes 15 short animated films created by the highly regarded Japanese animator between 1987 and 2007, including the acclaimed Mt. Head, which received an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Short Film of 2002. Other titles featured are the 2003 English-language The Old Crocodile and the 2007 title film, a nightmarish, drawing-on-paper rendering of the famed short story and winner of seven Grand Prizes at major animation festivals worldwide.

Koji Yamamura is considered one of the greatest independent Japanese animators of this generation. Born in Japan in 1964, he has been crafting animation since age 12 by combining traditional drawings with mixed media such as modeling clay, still photography and painting. Yamamura has fashioned entirely distinctive, stunningly imaginative worlds with free-spirited creativity: trees grow out of heads, birds dream of fruit and children are swallowed by whales.

Here’s a list of all the films in the collection:

  • Franz Kafka‘s A Country Doctor (2007, 21 mins)
  • Child’s Metaphysics (Kodomo no keijijogaku, 2007, 5 mins)
  • The Old Crocodile (Toshi wo Totta Wani, 2005, 13 mins, in English)
  • Pieces (Omake, 2003, 2 mins, no dialog)
  • Mt. Head (Atama-yama, 2002, 10 mins)
  • Your Choice! (Docchi ni Suru, 1999, 10 mins, in English)
  • Bavel’s Book (Bavel no Hon, 1996, 5 mins)
  • Kid’s Castle (1995, 5 mins, no dialog)
  • Kipling Jr. (1995, 15 mins)
  • From the Karo & Piyobupt series (1993, three films 4 mins each, no dialog):
  • A House (Ouchi); The Sandwiches (Sandoicchi); Imagination (Ame no Hi)
  • Perspektivenbox (Enkinhou no Hako, 1989, 4 mins, no dialog)
  • Japanese-English Pictionary (Hyakka Zukan, 1989, 12 mins, no dialog)
  • Aquatic (Suisei, 1987, 5 mins, no dialog)

The DVD’s only special feature is the essay The Animated Genius of Koji Yamamura.

 

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About Laurence

Founder and editor Laurence Lerman saw Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest when he was 13 years old and that’s all it took. He has been writing about film and video for more than a quarter of a century for magazines, anthologies, websites and most recently, Video Business magazine, where he served as the Reviews Editor for 15 years.