“A New Dawn”, interview with director Yoshitoshi Shinomiya

At the 76th edition of the Berlin International Film Festival, “A New Dawn” stands out as the only animated feature competing for the Golden Bear. Directed by Yoshitoshi Shinomiya, the film marks his feature debut. It signals a personal turning point for an artist who has long been associated with some of the most influential Japanese animated works of the past decade.

With a background in traditional Japanese painting and animation credits on titles such as “Your Name” by Makoto Shinkai and “In This Corner of the World” by Sunao Katabuchi, Shinomiya arrives in Berlin with a project that synthesises decades of artistic inquiry into place, memory and visual expression.

“I don’t see a strong difference between drawing a traditional Japanese painting and creating animation,” Shinomiya explains. “For me, it is the same act of drawing. The concept has always been about the relationship with a place and what art can express through it.”

From Nihonga to Animation: One Continuous Gesture

Trained in nihonga, a genre deeply rooted in Japanese tradition, Shinomiya has spent over twenty years navigating how to engage with inherited forms without being confined by them. While animation has been a lifelong passion, “I loved anime since I was a child,” he recalls, it took time to feel ready to merge technical mastery with personal vision.

“I believed that with the techniques of Japanese painting, there was something only I could create now,” he says. Presenting A New Dawn in competition brings, in his words, “a sense of relief.”

The film translates painterly sensitivity into movement, transforming landscapes into emotional territories. Once surrounded by lush forests, the Obinata firework factory is now threatened by urban expansion. A road extension will cut through the premises; the factory is set to undergo an administrative shutdown. Inside, Keitaro has isolated himself for four years, obsessively crafting fireworks while seeking to complete the mythical “Shuhari” firework envisioned by his vanished father.

Fireworks as Ritual and Cinema

Fireworks in “A New Dawn” are not mere spectacle. They function as ritual objects, as vessels of collective memory, and as fragile bursts of light against darkness. Shinomiya draws a parallel between fireworks and cinema, both ephemeral illuminations that gather communities in shared contemplation.

“In Japan, fireworks are closely connected to August festivals, to welcoming the souls of ancestors, and to the memory of the end of the Second World War,” he explains. “They carry religious and political meanings. For many Japanese people, seeing fireworks is connected to mourning and remembrance.”

In this context, fireworks become a gesture of peace rather than destruction. “In a time when there are so many wars,” he adds, “how we use something like gunpowder is important. Fireworks can be a way of praying for peace and remembering what has been lost.”

Animation, like fireworks, becomes a handmade light, an artisanal act resisting oblivion.

Shuhari: Breaking from Tradition

The concept of “shuhari,” rooted in martial arts and traditional disciplines, structures both the narrative and the director’s own artistic trajectory. The term describes three stages of learning: preserving the rules, breaking them, and ultimately transcending them.

In the film, the young protagonists must confront inherited traditions while forging new paths. The abandoned factory, the disappearing village, and the tension between preservation and transformation reflect a broader generational condition.

When asked whether “A New Dawn” represents his own shuhari moment, Shinomiya smiles. “I didn’t think about it that way,” he admits. “But maybe you are right.” After two decades of engaging with traditional painting, the question resonates. “It makes me reflect.”

Youth, Climate and the Weight of Inheritance

At its core, “A New Dawn” is also a portrait of contemporary Japan. Through its three young characters, the film addresses environmental anxiety and urban sprawl, themes acutely felt by younger generations.

“For the younger generation, environmental issues are more pressing than they were for us,” Shinomiya observes. “I wanted to think carefully about what I, as an adult, can create for them.”

The village threatened by development is not framed as a nostalgic lament but as a site of negotiation between continuity and change. The film does not offer easy resolutions. Instead, it dwells in the fragile interval between inheritance and reinvention.

As the only animated film in competition in Berlin this year, “A New Dawn” asserts animation’s capacity to engage with philosophical, political and ecological questions without relinquishing its artisanal roots. Like the fireworks it portrays, it illuminates briefly yet precisely, an act of drawing light against the encroaching dark.

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