FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
CONTACT:
Angela Alexander
Tempest Production Company
(214) 942-8830
(214) 942-9728 fax
Angie?TempestProductions.com
www.TempestProductions.com
Invasion: Anime Premieres in Texas at the Asian Film Festival of Dallas
First international screening coming this summer
Dallas, TX, -- May 1, 2003 - Dallas-based Tempest Production Company announced today that their first feature-length documentary, Invasion: ANIME, has been accepted into the 2nd Annual Asian Film Festival of Dallas. The documentary will show on May 27th, 2003 at 8:15 p.m. at the Dallas Museum of Art, 1717 North Harwood. The Festival runs May 22-30, 2003. This showing marks the Texas premiere of the film.
"This is especially exciting for us, being a Dallas-based production company," said producer and director Angela Alexander. "So many people in DFW helped us in with this production and we've very proud to have this opportunity to bring the Invasion to town."
The documentary will also travel overseas for the first time for a screening in July at Animotion, the film festival hosted by AniMagic 2003, one of Europe's largest anime conventions held annually in Nistertal, Gemany.
Invasion: ANIME is a broad look at the history of Japanese animation (or "anime") and its effect on American culture and entertainment over the last half-century. Interview subjects include names well known to anime fans across the world. Steve Bennett, president and founder of Studio Ironcat, artists and animators Akemi Takada, Senno Knife, Makoto Uno and Nobuyuki Takahashi, North American voice actors and directors Amy Howard Wilson, Tiffany Grant, Scott McNeil and Taliasen Jaffe and international anime experts like author Helen McCarthy and Dr. Susan J. Napier, Associate Director of Asian Studies, University of Texas, are but a few of more than 20 individuals who donated their time to this project.
AUDIENCES LOVE THE INVASION
At its world premiere at the St. Louis International Film Festival last November, Invasion:ANIME brought in an estimated 65% larger audience than the Steve Speilberg-produced miniseries Taken, which screened immediately before it. After the St. Louis premiere, independent film expert Chris Gore wrote, "Invasion: Anime is a great doc about Japanese animation...an independent film that deserves attention."
FilmThreat.com reviewer Eric Campos writes "Invasion: Anime ...gives a nice history run down of the Japanese animated film...(and serves) as a nice eye opener, offering up information that fans may not have known about from industry professionals and folks that actually study anime."
And audience members from across the country have called Invasion: Anime "fun," "exciting" and "terrific history."
THE REST IS HISTORY
"The whole documentary has been a series of happy accidents," says Alexander. Originally slated to be an inside look at science fiction/fantasy type conventions, a case of missing tape stalled that concept and gave birth to Invasion: ANIME.
"We were shooting at Project: A-Kon, a Dallas anime convention. The hotel's front desk misplaced a case of video tape we had set up for delivery during the weekend, limiting what we could shoot," explained Alexander. "So we chose to use the possibly once-in-a-lifetime-opportunity to get interviews with the Japanese artists who were guests of the convention."
"The rest, as they say, is history."
Invasion: ANIME encompasses several important firsts for Tempest Productions, as it is their first feature-length production and first attempt at a modern-day subject. The company is best known for their short-form examinations of Dallas-Fort Worth history, nearing completion of a series of documentary shorts for the Centennial Celebration in Irving, Texas, and An Authentic American Haunting: The Bell Witch of Tennessee. Previous productions include Etched in Stone: A Monumental History (submitted for consideration in the CableACE awards) and Utopia Lost: The La Reunion Commune.
More information about Tempest Productions and their documentaries can be found at www.TempestProductions.com. For information about the Asian Film Festival of Dallas, please visit www.affd.org. Information about Animotion can be found at http://www.animania.de/animagic/2003/animagic2003.html .
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