Amsterdam-based sales outfit Fortissimo Films has taken all rights outside Asia to new Japanese animated musical Inu-Oh from director Masaaki Yuasa.
Produced by Japanese animation studio Science SARU, the film will have its world premiere in Venice’s Horizons section next month, before showing as a special presentation at Toronto.
The deal was negotiated by Mai Kato, head of international sales at Asmik Ace, and Gabrielle Rozing, general manager at Fortissimo Films. It revives a longstanding relationship between the two companies, which previously co-managed sales on Tran Anh Hung’s Norwegian Wood, Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Air Doll and Takashi Shimizu’s Shock Labyrinth.
Inu-Oh is billed as an animated rock musical about a boy with special gifts who meets a blind biwa player, Tomona. When Inu-Oh asks Tomona to write a song about him, the pair find themselves launched on a successful music career in 14th-century Japan.
Made as a co-production with China, the film already has several distributors on board, including GKids for North America and Anime Limited in France, the UK and Benelux. It has also sold to some Asian territories, and is set for Japanese release in summer 2022.
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