Special ASIFA-Hollywood Membership Discount at the American Cinematheque

ASIFA-Hollywood members can receive a special discounted ticket price of $8 (general admission is $11) for the Titmouse, Oscar Shorts, and all four nights of anime! Just show proof of ASIFA membership  – your membership card, temporary card or QR coded card on your smart phone – at the box office and you’ll receive the discount! (Don’t have your Membership Card? Please see the article below.)

Egyptian Theatre • Friday, February 20, 2015 • 7:30pm
Short Film Programs 2015
Titmouse Founder Chris Prynoski In Person! Titmouse 5-Second Animation Night 2015

Animation studio Titmouse Inc. produces such programs as Adult Swim’s “The Venture Bros.,” “Superjail,” “China, IL,” “Metalocalypse,” “King Star King” and “Black Dynamite,” as well as Disney XD’s “Motorcity” and “Randy Cunningham 9th Grade Ninja.”

5-Second Night is an annual tradition that gives Titmouse animators the chance to bring to life whatever strange/beautiful/disturbing/funny ideas they’ve had all year as a short-format cartoon. Tonight the studio opens up the screening of these masterpieces to friends, neighbors and fans and adds in a selection of rarities from the studio’s vaults.

Introduction by Titmouse founder Chris Prynoski.

2015 Oscar-Nominated Animated Shorts
Egyptian Theatre • Saturday, February 21, 2015 • 9:30pm

The American Cinematheque presents all of the 2015 Oscar-nominated animated shorts! Distributed by Shorts International and Magnolia Pictures.

“The Bigger Picture” (U.K., 8 min. Daisy Jacobs, Christopher Hees) ‘You want to put her in a home; you tell her; tell her now!’ hisses one brother to the other. But Mother won’t go, and their own lives unravel as she clings on. Innovative life-size animated characters tell the stark and darkly humorous tale of caring for an elderly parent.

“The Dam Keeper” (U.S., 18 min. Robert Kondo, Dice Tsutsumi) This original animated short film by feature animation artists Robert Kondo and Dice Tsutsumi tells the tale of a young pig encumbered with an important job, and the meeting of a new classmate who changes everything. A first-time collaboration between some of the most talented artists in animation, The Dam Keeper made its world premiere as an official selection at the 2014 Berlin International Film Festival and is slated to make its US premiere at The New York International Children’s Film Festival this spring.

“Feast” (U.S., 6 min. Patrick Osborne, Kristina Reed) This new short, from first-time director Patrick Osborne (Head of Animation, PAPERMAN) and Walt Disney Animation Studios, is the story of one man’s love life as seen through the eyes of his best friend and dog, Winston, and revealed bite by bite through the meals they share.

“Me and My Moulton” (Canada, 14 min. Torill Kove) One summer in mid-’60s Norway, a seven-year-old girl asks her parents if she and her sisters can have a bicycle. The short provides a glimpse of its young protagonist’s thoughts as she struggles with her sense that her family is a little out of sync with what she perceives as “normal”.

“A Single Life” (Netherlands, 3 min. Joris Oprins) When playing a mysterious vinyl single, Pia is suddenly able to travel through her life.

82 min. | English subtitles if language is other than English.

JAPANESE ANIME GEMS
Egyptian Theatre • Thursday, February 26, 2015 – Sunday, March 1, 2015

For the past three years, February has brought dazzling anime features from Studio Ghibli to our theaters. But the company’s Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata are not the only great animators in Japan, and this month we spotlight films that are just as imaginative and ambitious as the best of Studio Ghibli.

Katsuhiro Ôtomo’s revolutionary anime AKIRA matched motorcycle gangs with military scientists in a post apocalyptic Tokyo; his follow up, STEAMBOY, filters similar themes through the prism of 1860s England. With 1995 mystery GHOST IN THE SHELL, Mamoru Oshii emerged as an animator who could formulate challenging questions at the same time as bravura action sequences. A protégé of both Ôtomo and Oshii, Satoshi Kon directed four features before his untimely death in 2010, including the “three men and a baby” tale TOKYO GODFATHERS and the multi-leveled dreamscapes of PAPRIKA. Takeshi Koike’s tale of intergalactic drag racers, REDLINE, will throw your senses into overdrive. Two of the most visionary anime TV series inspired superb feature adaptations in COWBOY BEBOP: THE MOVIE and TRIGUN: BADLANDS RUMBLE.

Series programmed by Grant Moninger. Program notes by John Hagelston.