A short animation based on a novel A Country Doctor by Franz Kafka, a well-known author with absurd novels. Devoting over ten thousand pictures to depict the fate of a country doctor who, though most surely missing something, but still carrying on living, the artist brilliantly visualized in a world of the doctor’s isolation and anxiety.

At 21 minutes, this ended up being quite a lot longer than my usual films; the production process was painstaking, but it was made possible through the efforts of the illustrators, music composer, sound engineers, voice actors and also the distributor, SHOCHIKU, who gave me the opportunity to produce this work. One of the most rewarding things about working on this project was that it brought me closer to Franz KAFKA’s spirit of creation and, being inspired by his original story, gave me the chance to extend the potential of animation. In addition, it has brought me this prize, for which I am very grateful. Thank you very much.

YAMAMURA Koji takes his solitary journey far outside the pack of other short animation films. Everyone would accept this fact after seeing his work. The denseness of the image produced by the animation which uses more than 10,000 individual pictures for 20 minutes of film is overwhelming when you take any one cut. “Bibiri,” fluttering, and “yugami,” skewness, embodying the mentality of the characters is a presentation achieved only by hand-drawn animation which the artist realized as a result of his continued trials. The very reason why he chose a Kafka story to base his new piece of work on is perhaps to visualize psychology and imagery which only animation can realize, rather than just telling a story. This may be what the artist wishes to present. YAMAMURA of the world, who never stops his walk, keeps challenging the possibilities of new presentations of animation.