Anime Fest at the Modern 2025

Welcome to Anime Fest at the Modern! Presented August 22–24, this year we feature two films by Naoko Yamada, one of Japan’s leading anime directors. To showcase her amazing work, we are excited to present Yamada’s award-winning classic, A Silent Voice (2016), and her newest feature film, The Colors Within (2024). Three additional films—Satoshi Kon and Kô Matsuo’s Millennium Actress (2001), Yôko Kuno and Nobuhiro Yamashita’s Ghost Cat Anzu (2024), and Makoto Shinkai and Yoko Suzuki’s The Place Promised in Our Early Days (2004)—highlight the range and depth of twenty-first century anime. Whether you are a longtime fan or new to anime, this selection invites you to explore the captivating worlds and intricate storytelling that these films offer.

All film screenings will be held in the Modern's auditorium. Tickets are $10 and $7 Modern members. Cinephiles who plan to enjoy the weekend’s entire selection of films will receive a discount for pre-purchasing all of their tickets at once.

Dr. Marc Hairston, a research scientist at the University of Texas at Dallas, will introduce each film. A professional space physicist, part-time anime scholar, and Fort Worth native, Hairston has hosted annual Japanese animation festivals at the Modern since 2012. He is one of the founding editors of Mechademia, the first academic journal focused on anime and manga studies, and has written numerous scholarly articles about anime. With Dr. Pamela Gossin, also at UT Dallas, he has co-authored two books about anime and manga aimed at high-school-age readers, Cultural Guide to Anime and Manga (2023) and Exploring Anime and Manga (World of Art) (2024).

Millennium Actress
August 22, 7 pm

Director Satoshi Kon was a titan of the anime world who sadly passed away in 2010 at the age of 46. Although he left behind only four films of his own, each one is a classic. Released in 2001, Millennium Actress is Kon’s love letter to Japanese cinema, told through an interview with Chiyoko Fujiwara, an aging icon of Japanese films. As the interview progresses, the actress’s memories and movies flow together into a seamless story that takes her interviewer and his cameraman through a thousand years of Japanese history, as seen through popular films and Chiyoko’s roles. Millennium Actress is an eye-dazzling and mind-blowing journey that will ultimately break your heart.

Watch the trailer here.
PG; 87 minutes

A Silent Voice
August 23, 1 pm

Bullying is a worldwide phenomenon. In Japan, it is a significant problem in schools and has been the subject of hundreds of films and television shows. Made in 2016, A Silent Voice is one of the most powerful anime films to deal with this topic. The film follows Shoya Ishida, a teenage boy who is haunted by his guilt for bullying and tormenting a deaf girl, Shoko Nishimiya, in elementary school. Now in high school, the two cross paths again and Shoya has a chance to make up for his misbehavior. But the course of redemption does not run smoothly, and both Shoya and Shoko must first come to terms with their own demons. Nominated for the 2017 Japan Academy Film Prize’s award for Best Animated Feature Film, A Silent Voice was directed by Naoko Yamada and is based on the manga series by Yoshitoki Oima.

Watch the trailer here.
PG; 130 minutes

The Colors Within
August 23, 4:30 pm

As one of the few female anime directors, Naoko Yamada has made a big name for herself, directing high-profile anime series such as K-ON!, Sound! Euphonium, The Heike Story, and the 2016 feature film A Silent Voice. In her most recent film, The Colors Within (2024), she continues to explore teenagers’ experiences and the important role of music in their lives. Totsuko is high school student at a Catholic boarding school for girls who has synesthesia. She sees people as colors, but is still searching for what her own color might be. When Kimi, one of her classmates, drops out of school without explanation, Totsuko goes in search of her. Through a chance conversation between the two girls and Rui, a boy they meet in a bookstore, the trio forms an amateur band. From there they use the music they create to sort out their feelings and explore what brings meaning to their lives.

Watch the trailer here.
PG; 101 minutes

Ghost Cat Anzu
August 24, 12:30 pm

Japanese culture’s rich tapestry of mythological creatures and demons provides the background for the 2024 film Ghost Cat Anzu, directed by Yoko Kuno and Nobuhiro Yamashita. Fifth-grader Karin has lost her mother and her ne’er-do-well, debt-ridden father has left her in the care of her grandfather, a priest at a Shinto shrine. Of course, the shrine has a live-in walking, talking, scooter-riding cat named Anzu. Upset at being dumped with her grandfather and missing her dead mother, Karin convinces Anzu and his supernatural buddies to take her to the Buddhist underworld so she can bring her mother back. They succeed, but this sets off a madcap chase with a group of Japanese demons that results in a surprisingly happy ending. In the words of Kevin Cormack from Anime News Network, “Ghost Cat Anzu is bonkers, and I love it for that.”

Watch the trailer here.
NR; 94 minutes

The Place Promised in Our Early Days
August 24, 3 pm

Many years before he wowed the anime world with the mega-hit Your Name in 2016, Makoto Shinkai explored the same themes of teenage love, longing, and separation across different realms in The Place Promised in Our Early Days (2004). Set in an alternative world where post-war Japan is divided up between the US and Russia, the story centers on three teenagers: two boys, Hiroki and Takuya, and a girl, Sayuri, living in the northern part of Japan (Honshu). Across the Tsugaru Strait in Russian-occupied Hokkaido they can see a mysterious, miles-high tower, which inspires the boys to build a small airplane and dream of flying to see it. But years later, when Sayuri slips into a strange coma, it appears to have something to do with the tower and Russian experiments to contact an alternate universe. To save Sayuri, and maybe the world, Hiroki and Takuya embark on a desperate attempt to reach the tower.

Watch the trailer here.
TV-PG; 94 minutes