In the Big Yard Inside the Teeny-Weeny Pocket

In the Big Yard Inside the Teeny-Weeny Pocket

| Short animation | March 2022 | Japan | 06'27" |

When it shrinks, it expands. It floats and it sinks. It separates but connects. When I think I’m watching them, they're actually watching me.
A charming animation rhyme that weaves together the many days of observing, recording, and experimenting.

Text, Animation and Directed by Yuki Yoko
Music: honninman
Surround Mixing: TAKINO Masumi
Mixer: Miyoshi Sae (Aoi Studio)
Producer: YAMAMURA Koji
Assistant Producer: sanae

Trailer: In the Big Yard Inside the Teeny-Weeny Pocket

» Vimeo

Director: YUKI Yoko

YUKI Yoko is Animation Filmmaker from Aichi and lives in Tokyo. She creates works using various materials based on what she feels every day. » YUKI Yoko

Director's Note:
In the fall of 2019, on the day I left for Viborg, Denmark, for an artist-in-residence program, I decided to start a picture diary to note the days ahead of me which were probably going to be filled with many new memories.
Arriving in Denmark, I suddenly lost my ability to express myself in words because I hadn’t studied up on my English. However, this seemed to heighten my physical senses, and although I was there only for about two months, the sunsets seemed to penetrate my body, rain became less annoying, and I was surprised to find the morning dew on the leaves so plump and shimmery. (I’ll turn a blind eye to the fact that describing the experience in words only dulls the sensation...)
The picture diary has become a part of my daily routine and I am in my fourth year of keeping record of events, dreams, and emotions. This film began by selecting a few entries from the diary and turning them into animation. I transcribed each of the pictures onto the first page of a small flipbook, making sure not to alter the wholeness of the feeling I received from that particular incident. Then, from the next page, I added motion to the lines of the previous page. As I went on, all the lines came alive and couldn’t keep still. They began to relate to each other, resonate with each other, repel against each other－all of them affecting the subsequent development. How the pictures progressed without me knowing where they were heading, and how new ideas emerged as I let the work take me wherever it wanted to go, I felt like this is how dreams must be generated.
After I saw the resulting animation, I wrote rhymes for it without being confined to the texts I wrote in the original diary. And then, I drew more pictures. As I repeated this process, honninman jumped in and started creating the music. This film came to be by exchanging pictures, music, rhymes, voices－back and forth and back again.

Awards (8)

TDC Grand Prix 2023: The Tokyo Type Directors Club Tokyo TDC Annual Awards 2023, Japan, 2023.01
Best in the International Film category: 4th Mobile Animation Film Festival - MAFF, US, 2022.09
Best Animated Short Film in the 7th seasons [August 2022]: 1st Golden Horse International Film Festival, India, 2022.08
Jury's Personal Pick: Sarina Nihei: 1st Hiroshima Animation Season, Japan, 2022.08
DNP Award: 9th New Chitose Airport International Animation Festival, Japan, 2022.11
Audience Award: Best Hand Drawn Animation: 5th FEEDBACK Animation Film & Screenplay Festival, US, 2022.09
Honourable Mention: 16th Annual TAIS Animation Showcase, Canada, 2022.10
Honourable Mention for Poetic Chaos: 8th GIRAF International Festival of Independent Animation, Canada, 2022.11

Official Selection (46)

74th Locarno International Film Festival, Switzerland, 2022.08
1st Hiroshima Animation Season, Japan, 2022.08
1st GOLDEN HORSE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL, India, 2022.08
16th Sydney Underground Film Festival (SUFF), Australia, 2022.09
18th Independent Animation Film Festival, Seoul Indie-AniFest2022 Korea, 2022.09
1st VAF Viborg Animation Festival Denmark, 2020.09
5th FEEDBACK Animation Film & Screenplay Festival, US, 2022.09
26th Encounters Film Festival, UK, 2022.09
4th Khem Animation Film Festival, US, 2022.09
19th International Film Festival of Asian Pacific Countries Pacific Meridian, Russia, 2022.09
22nd Future Film Festival, Italy, 2022.09.30-10.02
17th Animest International Animation Film Festival, Romania, 2022.10
20th New Hampshire Film Festival, US, 2022.10
16th TAIS Animation Showcase 2022, Canada, 2022.10
4th Mobile Animation Film Festival - MAFF, US, 2022.10
5th ANIMAFILM International Animation Festival, Azerbaijan, 2022.10
5th Festival of Animation Berlin, Germany, 2022.10
17h Sapporo International Short Film Festival, Japan, 2022.10
10th Primanima World Festival of First Animations, Hungary, 2022.10
41st Uppsala Short film festival, Sweden, 2022.10
7th Nightmares Film Festival 22, US, 2022.10.
4th Feinaki 2022 Beijing Animation Week, China, 2022.11
4th LOS ANGELES ANIMATED FILM FESTIVAL, US, 2022.11
9th New Chitose Airport International Animation Festival, Japan, 2022.11
23rd San Diego Asian Film Festival, US, 2022.11
19th London International Animation Festival(LIAF 2022), UK, 2022.11
18th GIRAF International Festival of Independent Animation, Canada, 2022.11
10th Montreal International Animation Film Festival - ANIMAZE, Canada, 2022.11
64th ZINEBI - International Festival of Documentary and Short Film of Bilbao, Spain, 2022.11
8th Le Festival Cinéma Jeune Public, Switzerland, 2022.11
18th GIRAF International Festival of Independent Animation,Canada, 2022,11
10th Montreal International Animation Film Festival - ANIMAZE, Canada, 2022.11
19th London International Animation Festival (LIAF 2022), UK, 2022.11-12
5th Expanded Experimental Animation Festival, Taiwan, 2022.12-2023.01
40th Sundance Film Festival 2023,US, 2023.01
The Tokyo Type Directors Club Tokyo TDC Annual Awards 2023, Japan, 2022.12
77th Mainichi Film Awards the Animation Film Award and the Ōfuji Noburō Award, Japan, 2023.01
16th Courts Mais Trash International Film Festival,Belgium, 2023.01
4th Feinaki 2022 Beijing Animation Week, Beijing,China, 2023.03
61st Ann Arbor Film Festival, US, 2023.03
27th REGARD Festival,Canada, 2023.03
25th Reel 2 Real International Film Festival for Youth, Canada, 2023.03-04
15th Hallucinations Collectives, France, 2023.04
32nd Florida Film Festival, US, 2023.04
35th FILMFEST DRESDEN, Germany, 2023.04
47th Atlanta Film Festival, US, 2023.04
9th Mammoth Lakes Film Festival, 2023.05