Admission Free

“Dr. Osamu Tezuka is one of the leading producers in Japan's growing animated film industry, and his Tezuka Productions K.K. is a major studio. Born in Osaka in 1926, he completed his studies to become a certified Medical Doctor and went further yet to earn a Ph.D. in Entomology, even while starting his career in filmmaking. After collaborating with Taiji (the ‘Walt Disney of Japan') Yabushita, he founded his own Mushi-Film Studio in 1961 and a year later produced his first picture, Aru Machikado no Monogatari (Story on a Street Corner). Its graphic design broke away to a more modern, UPA-style clarity.
“In 1966 Tezuka produced Jungle Taitei (Jungle Emperor) with Shigeyuki Hayashi as director and executed in Disneyesque full-studio animation, which proved quite popular in Europe. That same year he personally directed Tenra Kai No E, a ten-part experimental interpretation of Mussorgsky's ‘Pictures at an Exhibition,' reported to be something of a Japanese Fantasia. His studio's prodigious output has included the hit series Astro Boy and adult features such as Senya Ichiya Monogatari (One Thousand and One Nights) (1969) and, with Eichi Yamamoto, Cleopatra (Cleopatra, Queen of Sex) (1970).
“Phoenix 2772 (1980) is a romantic space-fantasy set in an overpopulated future where society is rigidly stratified, and the Science Center is losing the energy crisis by a doomed policy of brinkmanship with volcanoes. The Director finds an outstanding Space-Hunter to send forth on a mission to capture the secret of immortality from the legendary Firebird. When the Hunter falls in love with the Director's daughter, he is banished to a volcanic work-camp where he collaborates with a scientist in political exile. They escape together after a terrific air battle and vow to capture the secret of immortality for all of humanity. A titanic struggle with the fearful Firebird's boundless powers is about to vanquish the Space-Hunter when the monster miraculously disappears. Unbeknownst to them the Firebird has assumed an alternate identity, all the better to draw the dying Earth into an early apocalypse.”