Remaster celebrates 40 years with new 35mm film scans
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Deadline revealed on Friday that France-based Gebeka International has acquired the rights to sell Tokuma Shoten worldwide the 4K remaster of Mamoru Oshii and Yoshitaka Amano's 1985 Anime Angel's Egg (Tenshi no Tamago). Deadline noted that the film will”debut this year in 4K suitable for Dolby cinemas, cinemas and home theaters.”
Goodfellas (formerly Wild Bunch International) and animation company Gebeka Films created Gebeka International in 2021 and the company focuses on animation.
The remaster is based on a new scan of the 35mm film print of the anime. Oshii himself is overseeing the remaster to celebrate the anime's upcoming 40th anniversary.
The Angel's Egg original animation (OVA) debuted in Japan in 1985. Oshii directed the OVA at Studio DEEN. Oshii and Yoshitaka Amano conceived the story, and Oshii wrote the script and directed it. Amano is also in charge of art direction. Hiroshi Hasegawa, Masao Kobayashi, Mitsunori Miura and Yutaka Wada produced the film. Yoshihiro Kanno composed the music.
The Japan Society held a screening of the film at their museum in New York City on September 10. The Japan Society describes the story:
Taking place in a seemingly quiet time period, two nameless strangers—a girl carrying a mystical egg and a man wielding a crucifixion stick—journey through a primordial realm of ruins. ruins, primitive fish and fossil remains. A fantasy rich with symbolism and biblical allusions, Oshii's beautifully melancholic OVA ruminates on the tragic foundations of existence in a world without God.
Before last year's Japan Society screening, the anime had not received a Western release in its original form. Carl Colpaert's 1987 live-action/animated film In the Aftermath features scenes from the film.
Source: Deadline (Melanie Goodfellow)