July 14, 2014

Filmmaker Mamoru Oshii will receive a Lifetime Achievement Award at the forthcoming 18th Fantasia Film Festival (Fantasia 2014), the premiere North American fantastic film festival to be held in Montreal, Canada, from July 17 to August 6, 2014.

Fantasia motivates the recognitions as follows:
"Director Mamoru Oshii is a towering and truly unique figure in Japanese animation. From pioneering OVAs Dallos and the haunting Angel's Egg, and of course the beloved Patlabor series, of the 1980s, through the dramatically influential global hit Ghost in the Shell in the mid-'90s, to its award-winning sequel and other powerful, pensive works in the new millennium (The Sky Crawlers, Avalon), Oshii has consistently strived to bring new ideas and in fact a whole new attitude to anime. With his meticulous and idiosyncratic near-future thrillers and dramas, linked by persistent themes, motifs and concerns, Oshii asserts a complex, deeply thoughtful and decidedly adult sensibility - while maintaining the highest technical standards in the field (and hardly confining his efforts to animation). In seeking a path to call his own, Oshii has blazed a trail for fantastic entertainment worldwide to follow.

The award ceremony will take place on July 17, 2014 at 7:45 PM in the DB Clarke Theatre (Montreal) followed by the premiere HD screening of Oshii's groundbreaking feature film, Ghost in the Shell (1995).

The film was once described by James Cameron "A stunning work of speculative fiction... The first truly adult animation film to reach a level of literary and visual excellence."

Fantasia describes Ghost in the Shell as follows:
"If anything, our world has only caught up with its vivid cyberpunk perception of a hyper-technological dystopia. This crucial work of science fiction for the modern moment stands as a keystone of feature-length anime that has vaulted Japanese animation to the pinnacle worldwide."

Fantasia 2014 official website:
http://www.fantasiafestival.com/2014/