VAF 2017: When Denmark Met Japan
LOCATION: VIBORG, DANMARK
Inside installment 5 of Denmark's biggest animation festival – and Viborg's "Party Of The Year!"
In all my time in Viborg, Denmark, I have been sold the Viborg Animation Festival (VAF) over and over – but never have I been able to attend. This year, I decided, that had to change. So, September 21, 2017, I packed my bags and jetted off to Jutland to see how Viborg’s event of the year would live up to its hype. Not to spoil the ending, but it certainly delivered.
Everything began on Sunday, September 24, a day before the official beginning of VAF week. Our incredible friend Cristina Bojesen, character animator cum festival programmer, gave us an amazing guided tour of the Kawaii & Epikku museum in downtown Viborg, which she curated. The museum is an outstanding accomplishment, especially for a temporary exhibition. It goes beyond a typical art gallery – it’s a full-blown experience. Upon entering – by donation – you remove your shoes and trade them out for slippers. Passing through the lobby, home to a small shop selling Buddha boards and art prints, you are greeted by hanging scrolls of information. These are inspired by traditional Japanese artwork, but their sleek typeface and orange accents have all the appealing minimalism of Scandinavian design. Hokusai prints, shōjo manga (manga for girls), and early black-and-white Japanese comic spreads adorn these first-floor rooms, progressing chronologically. This delightful mix of imported artwork balances the cute and the epic – kawaii & epikku – in a wholly engaging way; the gallery walls are counterpointed by chic white-and-black screens, potted plants, and an enormous Astroboy carpet. The effect is direct and impactful: a blend of traditional Japanese aesthetic and the clean modernity of Danish taste, symbolizing the creative union and partnership between the two countries.
Stop-motion film clips and a model set lie on the second floor; to reach it, you must ascend the main staircase, adorned with an enormous black-and-white dragon on one flight and an Astroboy mural on the next. The stop-motion displays are of a Japanese character called Komaneko, an adorable, adventurous young cat. My personal favorite piece of the museum, housed with Komaneko on the second storey, is the Studio 4˚C exhibition. The studio, which has created such masterpieces as Tekkonkinkreet, loaned VAF film art of their striking metropolises and urban landscapes. These were accompanied by a time-lapse of one of their artists at work and a library of concept- and story board-filled binders. It was incredibly inspiring and provoked in me an intense urge to pull out my sketchbook and create.
The final storey is clearly tailored to be engaging for children but still holds all the draw of the previous floors. Featuring origami displays, an art-making area, and a Hello Kitty room [did you know Hello Kitty is not a cat?!], it’s a youthful space with all-ages appeal. Cristina and her team have absolutely outdone themselves in creating an engaging, dynamic experience for everyone.
VAF day one really proved what a triumph this event is for all involved. Viborg has a high concentration of students, of course, being home to The Animation Workshop (TAW) and The Drawing Academy (TDA), but it’s also full of families. The effort that has gone into making this festival enjoyable for every age is so clear. And there has been so much to navigate for the organizers with this international collaboration – they have pulled it off with a flourish despite a huge amount of hurdles and setbacks. Morten Thorning, driving force behind the festival, head of TAW, and a good friend of mine, says this in his catalogue foreword:
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The full English catalogue is here so you can read all the interesting commentary and event notes if you so choose. This year is clearly a big deal and I feel very fortunate to be able to experience it.
Day 1 was a resounding success. I attended Hokusai: Beyond The Great Wave, a brilliant documentary presented by the British Museum, followed by Studio Ghibli’s classic Princess Mononoke. There were also children’s films (not exclusively of Japanese origin) and several events available, solidly setting the tone for a fantastic week celebrating animation.
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Wednesday, September 27th – VAF Day 3 – featured an incredible conference called the Manga Symposium titled “Inspiration & Isolation.” The first half featured three lectures analyzing the far-reaching global impact of manga and, conversely, international inspiration on Japanese artists, making for an insightful and vastly interesting morning. Following the lectures were artist interviews with both Japanese and Danish artists. The Japanese artists, by way of translator, communicated the cultural importance of their work and their genre, while the Danes discussed how their styles have been impacted by exposure to manga |
and anime. It was a fantastic event, providing cultural research, informed opinions, and an unscripted look into creative inspiration. Later that day, all the Symposium attendees – mostly students from TAW, TDA, and Visuel HF – flowed over to the theatre for more cinematic entertainment. Like the first two days, the offerings du jour were an eclectic blend of adult short films, classic anime features, and contemporary movies of various origin. Children’s films, including Ma Vie De Courgette (My Life As A Zucchini) and Yo-kai Watch, were all shown earlier in the day. The evening’s more mature cinema was also an interesting mix, including my two picks of the day: Science Saru’s Lu Over The Wall and the brilliantly funny Le Grand Méchant Renard et Autres Contes (The Big Bad Fox And Other Tales) from France.
Thursday and Friday were when the action really started to amp up, with at least five events each day. The Festival Cafe, open every day of VAF, became perennially packed; with its bold murals, cozy decor, adorable staff, and relaxed atmosphere, it’s not hard to imagine why. It is a brilliant addition to the festival as a meet-up, hang-out location just a few minutes’ walk from some of the festival hotspots, including the cinema, the school, the game exposition (more on that in a bit), and – luckily for me – my flat. And it also serves to garner revenue as an art gallery and cafe.
Photography: Greg McQueen
The events on Friday, September 29, were really something special. An origami lecture and workshop was open to all ages, while at the music hall, Japanese and Danish artists battled it out – with nothing but markers, two huge sheets of paper, and teamwork. The whole manga battle was live-streamed on Facebook and was presented by Danish social media sensation Rasmus Kolbe, better known as Lakserytteren. Several other conferences, talks, workshops, and other events were also available, as well as the regular program of movies for children and adults alike. Plus, Day 5 screened the first half of the VAF student film competition submissions.
The real chef d’œvre of Friday’s cinematic offerings was Solar Walk, a jazz-animation fusion performance piece. A masterful combination of jazz vocals with big band instrumentals and animated visuals choreographed to the music, it was visionary, unusual, and wholly enjoyable.
| Day 6 for me included 1988’s Akira, directed by Katsuhiro Otomo, and 5 Centimeters Per Second, Makoto Shinkai’s beautiful story of love and self-discovery. They are two drastically different anime films which I nevertheless enjoyed equally. The penultimate day of the festival was cleverly geared towards families, with the cinema showing many children’s films either dubbed or subtitled in Danish throughout the day. Saturday was also the last day the game exposition was open, so we stopped in for a while to check it out. |
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What we encountered was an enormous space packed full of game kiosks, cosplayers, VR booths, and all kinds of events taking place on a stage at the back. Subway Surfers, the viral mobile game that was developed in Viborg by TAW alumni, had a stall, as well as the award-winning game Lost Tracks, developed by third-year TAW students in lieu of the typical bachelor short film.
Video game and film character cosplayers mingled amongst the plainclothes attendees; Baymax socialized with some anime girls with mid-thigh-length pigtails, while a highly inscrutable, fully-armored man took photos with guests.
The entire festival was a resounding success, but October 1st – day 7 – was formidable. An entire interactive video game was projected onto the side of Arsenalet, using the building’s features as the game world’s landscape. Entitled From Cold War to Colorful Peace, the game’s story follows the journey of the building from military barracks to modern-day hub for animation and artistic creation. The idea is that audience members, one at a time, can step up and determine the “fate” of the town, all in real time. This spectacle was, unfortunately, only viewable from the uncovered grass field neighboring the building; soggy from days of rain, the sky spitting out frigid droplets, it was not well attended. But the line to operate Viborg’s fate still resolutely stretched the length of the field.
Then came the student film competition awards followed by, at long last, the PARTY OF THE YEAR! What began as a live concert by Morten Thorning’s band morphed into a full-on dance party, while next door in the VAF Cafe’s versatile space conversationally-oriented party-goers could chat in a quieter environment. The party stretched long into the night, as Viborg bashes tend to do, and was the perfect exclamation point on the magnificent feat of creative international partnership that was the Viborg Animation Festival 2017.
Thank you for having me – I can't wait to see what next year's animation extravaganza holds!
All other photography by Annika Jordan