Tuesday, May 16, 2017

Reminiscing the floating world: about EDOnism and a giant catfish

Edonism is the tragic story of James Hallway, an English businessman from the UK who comes to Tokyo looking to fulfill his dreams and lead a peaceful life with his beautiful wife, Sophie. Instead he finds toil, torment and alcoholism. Unable to bear his descent into self-destruction, Sophie leaves, abandoning him to his downward spiral into the gutter. Day by day, his reality is consumed by hallucinations and weird perceptions. Once things can’t get any worse, he falls into a coma.
When he awakens from the coma, he begins to learn some terrifying truths about his condition and his connection to a long-forgotten legend from ancient Japan. Together with the resourceful Dr Geena Landlord he attempts a desperate quest of discovery that leads them both to the very heart of a conspiracy involving a secret government order and the enigmatic being known as the The Cat Fish. 

The sci-fi mystery movie "EDOnism" filmed in Tokyo, directed, written, edited by Alessandro Fantini and produced by Lorenzo Fantini in 2010, had its Italian premiere at the first edition of "La Selva Nera" international film festival in Selvazzano Dentro, Padua, founded and directed by film critic Massimo Bezzati and filmmaker-writer Stefano Bovi.

 When I faced for the first time the idea to shoot a movie in Tokyo, while I was discussing the hypothesis with then soon-to-be EDonism producer Lorenzo Fantini during his latest stay in Italy in 2009, I immediately thought that the script should have deal with something gigantic, frightening and epic. No other city in the world is able to suggest the feeling of a majestic and intimidating human beehive as much as Tokyo. It seemed that all my obsessions for movies like Blade Runner, Akira and Ghost in the Shell as well as my interest in Shintoism, Ukiyo-e art,  and Suehiro Maruo, would have take me sooner or later  to nowhere but to the enigmatic land of geisha, samurai, Godzilla and hi-tech marvels.  As usual, the way I fleshed out the concept and the story was closer to the process of conceiving a painting or a comic than to a traditional pre-production of a movie.
EDOnism FB page: https://www.facebook.com/edonismmovie/


Director, editor, animator, screenwriter, co-producer and soundtrack composer: AFan Alessandro Fantini
Producer, art director, co-writer, casting director and location manager: Lorenzo Fantini
Line producer: Miles Elliott
Assistant producer: Lucy King
Post production supervisor: Nate Jensen
Make up artist: Kana Yoshida
Cast: Sacha Mühlebach, Helene Salvini Fujita, Hiro Super, Lucy King, Lorenzo Fantini, Kyle H., Nate Jensen, Tony Evans, Alessandro Fantini, Cyrus Malekani.

Genre: Sci-fi thriller, drama, adventure
Shooting format: HDV
Runtime: 65 min.
Country: Italy, Japan
Language: English
Filming locations: Tokyo
Release date: June 2010