The Colors Within

Red with rage. Looking at the world with rose-coloured glasses. Colours and emotions are intrinsically linked for most people. For high school student Totsuko, however, this connection takes on a completely different meaning. She has the ability to see the feelings of those around her as colours. The happier a person is, the brighter that person's unique colour shines. In order not to obscure the colours of her family and friends, Totsuko enters into a rather casual relationship with the truth and occasionally expresses herself in an intentionally ambiguous way. Totsuko's favourite colour is that of her schoolmate Kimi. When she stops coming to school one day, Totsuko tries to find her again at all costs and finds out that being true to your own colour is not so easy.

After films such as A Silent Voice (2016) and Liz and the Blue Bird (2018), director Naoko YAMADA belongs to the premier league in the anime world. She received a whole host of awards for A Silent Voice, including from the Japanese Film Academy. She started her career at Kyoto Animation, but left the studio after the arson attack in 2019, which she survived unharmed. The Colors Within is her first feature film since then and had its world premiere at the Annecy Animation Film Festival. After winning Best Animated Film at the festival in Shanghai, the film is expected to receive further major awards. The screenplay was written by Reiko YOSHIDA, who not only wrote the two Yamada films mentioned above, but also the feature film The Blue Period, which was shown at Japannual this year.