September 15, 2025 • 21 mins
Blue hearts, high school dreams, and one unforgettable rock anthem — we’re diving into Nobuhiro Yamashita’s Linda Linda Linda (2005). The film follows a group of teenage girls in a Japanese high school who form a last-minute band to play the Blue Hearts’ classic “Linda Linda” at their school festival, with a quiet Korean exchange student unexpectedly stepping in as their lead singer.
Mike White is joined by Chance Huskey of GKIDS to talk about the film’s enduring charm, its place in the coming-of-age canon, and GKIDS’s North American release. From Yamashita’s understated style to Doona Bae’s breakout performance, this conversation riffs on the film’s infectious energy, youthful vulnerability, and what makes it resonate almost twenty years later.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.
Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth
Mike White is joined by Chance Huskey of GKIDS to talk about the film’s enduring charm, its place in the coming-of-age canon, and GKIDS’s North American release. From Yamashita’s understated style to Doona Bae’s breakout performance, this conversation riffs on the film’s infectious energy, youthful vulnerability, and what makes it resonate almost twenty years later.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.
Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Old you is, folks, It's show died.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
People say good money to see this movie.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
When they go out to a theater. They want cold sodas,
hot popcorn, and no monsters. In the protection booth.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Everyone pretend podcasting isn't boring. Got it off? Le me
(00:41):
get Yeah. Also really was had to.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Hey, folks, we'll do a special episode of the Projection Booth.
I'm your host, Mike White. On this episode, I am
talking with Chantusky. He is the vice president of distribution
at Gee Kids. It is an organization out of New
York that is distributing all kinds of great films, including
the film Linda Linda Linda, which is having a revival Screaming.
(02:00):
Definitely check your local listings and if you happen to
miss it, it will be coming out on Blu ray
and hopefully digital pretty darn soon. I had a chance
to see it a few years ago on a not
that great DVD, so I'm super excited that this is
getting a restoration and more people will have a chance
to see it. It is a lot of fun, and
I hope you have fun listening to this interview. Can
(02:22):
you give me a little bit of your background.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Yeah, I'm originally from Nashville, Tennessee. I moved to New
York in two thousand and nine to go in YU,
where I intended to study classics and ended up in
film studies and sort of the rest was history. It
was through that department that I met the president of
our company, Dave Jestett, who I think was also an
alumnus of the film studies program there, And I got
(02:46):
an internship at che Kids back in twenty thirteen, which
at the time was really focused on these sort of
prestige animated films, you know, the Secret of Kel's at
cat and Paris, Chico and Rita, and had made a
name for itself on that stuff. And then basically I
had been hired to help handle you know, repertory screenings.
(03:07):
At the time, we had just taken over theatrical rights
for the Gibley Catalog, and so I was managing the
theatrical tour of those thirty five milimeter prints before they
were digitized into DCPs and stuff. So I've been at
the company ever since, and I've seen it grow from there.
But in terms of me personally, basically, I've been at
the company long enough that it is sort of me
(03:29):
so there you go.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
For G Kids.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Is that Gibley or does that stand for Godzilla?
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Technically it stands for gorilla, like gorilla warfare. I like
to think that it can stand for whatever you wanted
to stand for. So the Gibli Association is nice, the
Godzilla Association is nice. But a Gorilla Kids was I
think the production company that the CEO ran that helped
produce the festival, out of which G Kids then spun
(03:57):
complicated situation. A lot has changed the last year, but
long story short. The CEO of the current CEO, Eric Beckman,
founded the company as a kind of spin off of
a festival he'd been running since the nineties, the New
York International Children's Film Festival. So when I joined, the
two companies were essentially the same still, but around twenty
(04:18):
thirteen twenty fourteen, the technically or i guess more formally split.
The festival still runs as its own nonprofit, the ge
Kids became its own standalone for profit distribution entity, and
we basically made it work for a really long time. Basically,
it's just compared to these sort of billionaire own, venture
(04:40):
capital backed independent companies, we were really scrappy and for
a long time we were about four to seven people,
and around twenty eighteen we started to work more in
the anime space, and I think that'll facilitated a broader
range of projects for us to work on, and we
brought on a lot more people, and about a year
ago October of twenty twenty four, the company formerly sold
(05:03):
to Toho in Japan, and it's still fully autonomous, but
we now report into the bigger Toho conglomerate and it's
a period. I guess you could call them sort of
cousin companies that kind of exist inside of it. But
mostly everything has basically stayed the same, and we're just
(05:24):
handling Toho projects that we probably would have been bidding on.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Anyway, you now have an a in. I suppose it's.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Nice to have friends. I guess that's the way that
I think about it, compared to like when you're out
there alone in the independent space, things feel a little lonely.
A lot of the New York distributors and exhibitors can
attest to what.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Are some of the things that Ji Kids have brought
out over them in the last few years.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Most notably we handled the US and Canadian distribution and
for The Boy and the Heron, which is Miazaki's latest film,
and I would say after that Bell was a pretty
big one, which was Mamora SODA's last film. He has
a new film coming out from Sonia's here called Scarlet.
But we've handled everything big and small, like we do
(06:11):
a lot of repertory stuff and and here I guess
I'm part to talk about Linda Linda Linda. We've handled
a theatrical re release of the End of Evangelion from
Pidiaki Ano Memorro she goes from Michelle Too Innocence, and
then in addition to that, we do a lot of
European film still. So last year we did Mars Express
(06:33):
from Jeremie perm and Chicken for Linda from Sbastian Loden
Book and Kira Malta, and so trying to like basically
keep a little bit of balance in there, because she
Kids's mission initially was really about the best animation from
all around the world, and so we still try to
live up to that where we can.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Linda Linda Linda is not an animated film, So can
you tell me a little bit about how that project
came to you?
Speaker 1 (06:58):
The history with that film goes back quite a bit
to the festival that I mentioned, because I think a
lot of programmers from the mid two thousands remember this
film very fondly, and I believe it's screening that Nika
for the New York Children's Film Festival back when the
film came out, and it just retained this very positive
energy and became kind of a cult occult film over
(07:20):
time with periodic repertory screenings. I believe Japan Society held
some a few years ago, and we ended up working
on one of the director's most recent films, What's Happened
to be animated called ghostcat Onto, and so you mashed
us On had work together with an animator, Yoko Kuno,
(07:41):
to basically create I mean, it's like a slacker in
D comedy and it's shot like one but it's used
as rotoscoping in a really innovative way, and so it's
kind of like it's like a Totuo esque but it
has a lot of the same sort of endi comedy
vibe that you would expect from the director. And so
(08:01):
I think that that basically like when we started handling that,
we thought, wouldn't it be like a great idea to
work on the Liland Linda or re release that, and
then that's in the post us and we said, we'd
absolutely love to kind of work on this, and it's
not totally without precedent. Earlier this year we did Anna's
(08:22):
Love and Pop, which was filn from the late nineties
that Anno had worked on, and so there was a
little bit of, oh, if you know this director from
their animated work, we can carry that audience with us
into live action. But I expect that we'll continue to
work on developing this vertical for sure. I think it's
a really special film with a kind of I don't know,
(08:44):
like a fundamental elemental power that like sticks with people
over time, which is why I think it's developed this reputation.
And I think a lot of people who have seen
it on DVD because it sort of like came out
and peaked DVD era, I think you'll be really surprised
when you revisit it in the restoration because it's just
it looks really, really gorgeous in a way that I
(09:07):
was put off guard by the first time I saw
the restored version.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Yeah, with the DBD version that I saw, it was
very tough to tell when it was supposed to be
the cam quarter footage versus not the camp quarter footage.
So having that distinction I'm sure was going to be
very eye opening.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
So much of the film is in its braining and
its interiors and things like that, and so as a
visual experience, like I would say, it's deceptively simple in
terms of what it's how it's presenting. There's a lot
going on, but beats it to you in this way
that you don't realize how much information that's conveying to
(09:44):
you in the moment.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
You're right, it is very universal, the whole struggle of
high school students, especially outcastish type of girls. It just
really spoke to me. And just also the music is fantastic.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
The music, I think is what sticks with people. It
reminds me of Nashville or something. Right, It's like people
leave the theater like thinking about the song that kind
of like leaves you with that last impression. And so
when you're watching it or when you're rewatching it, part
of the anticipation of that moment is just so much
a part of the experience, and I think lends itself
(10:21):
to like the act of rewatching or the act of reexperiencing,
but also like to your point, there's like a kind
of nostalgia for this kind of moment in youth where
everything as a sort of special, like I said, like
an elemental power to it. And I feel like the
film like captures that in microcosm, and that kind of
(10:42):
gives it this unique quality.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
He touched a little bit about how the company grew
in twenty eighteen, and I'm curious how the pandemic affected
you guys.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Ultimately, it worked out for us. I think we got
really really lucky because we had around twenty seventeen twenty
eight eighteen, we had taken on more rights on the
side of the Jibie catalog and we were in the
process re releasing a lot of those films on the
(11:11):
new Blu Ray editions and things like that, and I
think we were able to pivot to a model that
was more video oriented, and I dare I say, like
repertory oriented. Like I said, we've been in that space
from the beginning, because a lot of what I was
doing when I joined the company was managing like touring retrospectives.
(11:34):
But being able to enter the DVD and Blu Ray
market with such heavy hitters I think really helped the
company grow. Speaking personally, a lot of what I was
working on twenty twenty one was like the sort of
low key, I guess you could call it, like the
life support cinema experience. So working on the ASCOL releases
(11:56):
of films like Wolf Walkers and Earwig in the Win
which as much as I could, and then separately working
on a like a direct sale store online like online
e commerce play. And we had taken over the rights
for Neon Genesis Evangelian at that time, and so we
had this luxurious, you know, ultimate edition that we were
(12:19):
putting out to the market, but also just regular additions
that were selling pretty well. Evangelian hadn't been available on
a commercial DVD at that point, and probably fifteen twenty
years since the platinum sets, I still have a lot
of build brinds who are very possessive of their platinum
(12:39):
DVD sets of HUT series. But there's a whole new generation,
speaking of Linda, Linda, Linda, there's a whole new generation
of people who like really appreciate the ability to access
these things or to own them, as opposed to just
having them on streaming. Evangelian obviously maybe a huge splash
when it went direct to Netflix, and that's like how
(13:02):
I'd say the broader public has encountered it these days.
But the Blue Rays sets are nice.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Yeah, it's amazing that you've got the theatrical, you've got
the Blue Ray, you've got the streaming. I mean that
just to have the e commerce, to be able to
have that reach, especially in a market like this these
days where everything is so fragmented.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
Personally, I'm a big collector. I'm not as big as
other people in the industry. I think about like vinegar
syndrome or something like that, where people are just buying
everything that they possibly can't number whatever, But personally, like
I do feel a lot of pride when I am
able to line up all the spines of the Blu
Rays or whatever in such a way that they match.
(13:43):
For when I think about the Ghibili collection, like the
way that it's nice that there's like uniformity across them,
or however you see it. And then my colleague Allison Cosberg,
who oversees home media, is put together some really amazing
products over the years, follow our stuff like the Misaki
Yuasa five film box set, the aforementioned Evangelian box sets,
(14:07):
and then We've also been working on Arcane, which is
the fourtiesh television show for Netflix, and Riot, the being
developer for League of Legends, and we have some really
awesome products there as well. So I say that because
I can't take credit for I can take credit for
purchasing them myself. So there you go.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
So, besides the upcoming we release of Linda Linda Linda,
what kind of stuff are you looking forward to seeing
coming out from G Kids this year?
Speaker 1 (14:35):
So I'm thinking a lot about Toronto because I'm headed
there tomorrow. But we have a really amazing film out
of France that's like a genuine discovery called Little Amili
or The Character of Rain. And this is an adaptation
of a Belgian novel from Amalin Notom that's sent me
out a biographical but it imagines the inner life of
(14:57):
I guess, a three year old. You could think of
it as a coming of age film in a kind
of weird way. She's a Belgian girl growing up in
Japan and basically reconciling with this idea that she doesn't
really belong there or is otherwise, you know, a foreign presence,
I guess, in a weird way. It does tie in
(15:17):
a little bit to Linda Linda Linda in the sense
of overcoming a language barrier or a cultural divide and
finding out who you are. But it's a really tremendous
film from the studio that did Calamity and Long Way North,
and so it's got this really cool, flat graphic style,
but it's got a surprising amount of depth and shine
to it for something like that, it's very different from
(15:38):
like the graphic style people associated with quote Unook cartoons.
And because of the literary source material, it's got a
lot of like screenplay depth that I think is really
uncommon among animated films generally speaking. That's our big kind
of prestige full title. And then, like I said, we
(15:59):
have a lot going on in the anime space as well.
We're working on the fortieth anniversary re release of Angels
Egg from Amroshi and Yoshtaka Amano, and we released the
poster and trailer for that a few weeks ago and
not got just amazing traction. That's a film similar to
Linda Linda Linda in terms of a long, long cult status,
(16:22):
a long period of on a availability, and it's a
lifelong gamer. I've always loved Yaka Amano's arts for Final Fantasy,
and so it's a great privilege to be working on
the film, and I think it'll have surprising traction, probably
in theaters for a seventy two minute film from forty
years ago. I think younger viewers today really want to
(16:44):
be challenged by films. I feel like Angels Egg is
like a real proving ground for that. Our big November
released this.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Yeah, that's another one I'm really excited to see. So
I'm stoked for that one too. Is there a good
place for people to keep up with what you guys
are doing out online?
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Yeah? Our Instagram account is my favorite place to keep
up with the stuff. But I guess that reveals me
to be a peak millennial. But our Instagram handles gee
kids films, and I feel like it's my favorite place
to engage with our like the stills from the films, posters, trailers,
(17:22):
just because so much of what we handle so visual.
I guess that's true for any film company, but especially
like the types of films that we're handling have this
like strong aesthetic pool to them that people just really
love to get into the replies on and I love
our social team. I think they do a really great
job of curating looks from the wide variety of films
(17:45):
that we're handling, both I guess animated and live action
films as we start to incorporate those as well.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Chance, thank you so much for your time. This is
great talking with you, sir.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Yeah, no, anytime. It's been really nice.
Speaker 3 (18:03):
Name me me da it's cusi nai shasi you usa
(18:26):
cusiza god goa lia is okuga.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
It's give me off the.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
Songkia song hioki sada say that men don't let me
(19:24):
me thank you Dory your name on yours.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
Don't let me me.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
Nanny yourn emo.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
Me me that that saga, it's a give me all the.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Oh toking up?
Speaker 3 (20:03):
Are you know? I shall he's donna to him all?
Oh he's donna to them or GB or.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
Can't shoot them up?
Speaker 3 (20:21):
Can I.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
E g.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
Bot You don't him to that? Is that?
Speaker 1 (20:51):
The bad?
Speaker 3 (20:52):
Is that.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
In the me that that Inda?
Speaker 2 (20:59):
No, that is that is that
Old you is, folks, It's show died.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
People say good money to see this movie.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
When they go out to a theater. They want cold sodas,
hot popcorn, and no monsters. In the protection booth.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Everyone pretend podcasting isn't boring. Got it off? Le me
(00:41):
get Yeah. Also really was had to.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Hey, folks, we'll do a special episode of the Projection Booth.
I'm your host, Mike White. On this episode, I am
talking with Chantusky. He is the vice president of distribution
at Gee Kids. It is an organization out of New
York that is distributing all kinds of great films, including
the film Linda Linda Linda, which is having a revival Screaming.
(02:00):
Definitely check your local listings and if you happen to
miss it, it will be coming out on Blu ray
and hopefully digital pretty darn soon. I had a chance
to see it a few years ago on a not
that great DVD, so I'm super excited that this is
getting a restoration and more people will have a chance
to see it. It is a lot of fun, and
I hope you have fun listening to this interview. Can
(02:22):
you give me a little bit of your background.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Yeah, I'm originally from Nashville, Tennessee. I moved to New
York in two thousand and nine to go in YU,
where I intended to study classics and ended up in
film studies and sort of the rest was history. It
was through that department that I met the president of
our company, Dave Jestett, who I think was also an
alumnus of the film studies program there, And I got
(02:46):
an internship at che Kids back in twenty thirteen, which
at the time was really focused on these sort of
prestige animated films, you know, the Secret of Kel's at
cat and Paris, Chico and Rita, and had made a
name for itself on that stuff. And then basically I
had been hired to help handle you know, repertory screenings.
(03:07):
At the time, we had just taken over theatrical rights
for the Gibley Catalog, and so I was managing the
theatrical tour of those thirty five milimeter prints before they
were digitized into DCPs and stuff. So I've been at
the company ever since, and I've seen it grow from there.
But in terms of me personally, basically, I've been at
the company long enough that it is sort of me
(03:29):
so there you go.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
For G Kids.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Is that Gibley or does that stand for Godzilla?
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Technically it stands for gorilla, like gorilla warfare. I like
to think that it can stand for whatever you wanted
to stand for. So the Gibli Association is nice, the
Godzilla Association is nice. But a Gorilla Kids was I
think the production company that the CEO ran that helped
produce the festival, out of which G Kids then spun
(03:57):
complicated situation. A lot has changed the last year, but
long story short. The CEO of the current CEO, Eric Beckman,
founded the company as a kind of spin off of
a festival he'd been running since the nineties, the New
York International Children's Film Festival. So when I joined, the
two companies were essentially the same still, but around twenty
(04:18):
thirteen twenty fourteen, the technically or i guess more formally split.
The festival still runs as its own nonprofit, the ge
Kids became its own standalone for profit distribution entity, and
we basically made it work for a really long time. Basically,
it's just compared to these sort of billionaire own, venture
(04:40):
capital backed independent companies, we were really scrappy and for
a long time we were about four to seven people,
and around twenty eighteen we started to work more in
the anime space, and I think that'll facilitated a broader
range of projects for us to work on, and we
brought on a lot more people, and about a year
ago October of twenty twenty four, the company formerly sold
(05:03):
to Toho in Japan, and it's still fully autonomous, but
we now report into the bigger Toho conglomerate and it's
a period. I guess you could call them sort of
cousin companies that kind of exist inside of it. But
mostly everything has basically stayed the same, and we're just
(05:24):
handling Toho projects that we probably would have been bidding on.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Anyway, you now have an a in. I suppose it's.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Nice to have friends. I guess that's the way that
I think about it, compared to like when you're out
there alone in the independent space, things feel a little lonely.
A lot of the New York distributors and exhibitors can
attest to what.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Are some of the things that Ji Kids have brought
out over them in the last few years.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Most notably we handled the US and Canadian distribution and
for The Boy and the Heron, which is Miazaki's latest film,
and I would say after that Bell was a pretty
big one, which was Mamora SODA's last film. He has
a new film coming out from Sonia's here called Scarlet.
But we've handled everything big and small, like we do
(06:11):
a lot of repertory stuff and and here I guess
I'm part to talk about Linda Linda Linda. We've handled
a theatrical re release of the End of Evangelion from
Pidiaki Ano Memorro she goes from Michelle Too Innocence, and
then in addition to that, we do a lot of
European film still. So last year we did Mars Express
(06:33):
from Jeremie perm and Chicken for Linda from Sbastian Loden
Book and Kira Malta, and so trying to like basically
keep a little bit of balance in there, because she
Kids's mission initially was really about the best animation from
all around the world, and so we still try to
live up to that where we can.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Linda Linda Linda is not an animated film, So can
you tell me a little bit about how that project
came to you?
Speaker 1 (06:58):
The history with that film goes back quite a bit
to the festival that I mentioned, because I think a
lot of programmers from the mid two thousands remember this
film very fondly, and I believe it's screening that Nika
for the New York Children's Film Festival back when the
film came out, and it just retained this very positive
energy and became kind of a cult occult film over
(07:20):
time with periodic repertory screenings. I believe Japan Society held
some a few years ago, and we ended up working
on one of the director's most recent films, What's Happened
to be animated called ghostcat Onto, and so you mashed
us On had work together with an animator, Yoko Kuno,
(07:41):
to basically create I mean, it's like a slacker in
D comedy and it's shot like one but it's used
as rotoscoping in a really innovative way, and so it's
kind of like it's like a Totuo esque but it
has a lot of the same sort of endi comedy
vibe that you would expect from the director. And so
(08:01):
I think that that basically like when we started handling that,
we thought, wouldn't it be like a great idea to
work on the Liland Linda or re release that, and
then that's in the post us and we said, we'd
absolutely love to kind of work on this, and it's
not totally without precedent. Earlier this year we did Anna's
(08:22):
Love and Pop, which was filn from the late nineties
that Anno had worked on, and so there was a
little bit of, oh, if you know this director from
their animated work, we can carry that audience with us
into live action. But I expect that we'll continue to
work on developing this vertical for sure. I think it's
a really special film with a kind of I don't know,
(08:44):
like a fundamental elemental power that like sticks with people
over time, which is why I think it's developed this reputation.
And I think a lot of people who have seen
it on DVD because it sort of like came out
and peaked DVD era, I think you'll be really surprised
when you revisit it in the restoration because it's just
it looks really, really gorgeous in a way that I
(09:07):
was put off guard by the first time I saw
the restored version.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Yeah, with the DBD version that I saw, it was
very tough to tell when it was supposed to be
the cam quarter footage versus not the camp quarter footage.
So having that distinction I'm sure was going to be
very eye opening.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
So much of the film is in its braining and
its interiors and things like that, and so as a
visual experience, like I would say, it's deceptively simple in
terms of what it's how it's presenting. There's a lot
going on, but beats it to you in this way
that you don't realize how much information that's conveying to
(09:44):
you in the moment.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
You're right, it is very universal, the whole struggle of
high school students, especially outcastish type of girls. It just
really spoke to me. And just also the music is fantastic.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
The music, I think is what sticks with people. It
reminds me of Nashville or something. Right, It's like people
leave the theater like thinking about the song that kind
of like leaves you with that last impression. And so
when you're watching it or when you're rewatching it, part
of the anticipation of that moment is just so much
a part of the experience, and I think lends itself
(10:21):
to like the act of rewatching or the act of reexperiencing,
but also like to your point, there's like a kind
of nostalgia for this kind of moment in youth where
everything as a sort of special, like I said, like
an elemental power to it. And I feel like the
film like captures that in microcosm, and that kind of
(10:42):
gives it this unique quality.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
He touched a little bit about how the company grew
in twenty eighteen, and I'm curious how the pandemic affected
you guys.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Ultimately, it worked out for us. I think we got
really really lucky because we had around twenty seventeen twenty
eight eighteen, we had taken on more rights on the
side of the Jibie catalog and we were in the
process re releasing a lot of those films on the
(11:11):
new Blu Ray editions and things like that, and I
think we were able to pivot to a model that
was more video oriented, and I dare I say, like
repertory oriented. Like I said, we've been in that space
from the beginning, because a lot of what I was
doing when I joined the company was managing like touring retrospectives.
(11:34):
But being able to enter the DVD and Blu Ray
market with such heavy hitters I think really helped the
company grow. Speaking personally, a lot of what I was
working on twenty twenty one was like the sort of
low key, I guess you could call it, like the
life support cinema experience. So working on the ASCOL releases
(11:56):
of films like Wolf Walkers and Earwig in the Win
which as much as I could, and then separately working
on a like a direct sale store online like online
e commerce play. And we had taken over the rights
for Neon Genesis Evangelian at that time, and so we
had this luxurious, you know, ultimate edition that we were
(12:19):
putting out to the market, but also just regular additions
that were selling pretty well. Evangelian hadn't been available on
a commercial DVD at that point, and probably fifteen twenty
years since the platinum sets, I still have a lot
of build brinds who are very possessive of their platinum
(12:39):
DVD sets of HUT series. But there's a whole new generation,
speaking of Linda, Linda, Linda, there's a whole new generation
of people who like really appreciate the ability to access
these things or to own them, as opposed to just
having them on streaming. Evangelian obviously maybe a huge splash
when it went direct to Netflix, and that's like how
(13:02):
I'd say the broader public has encountered it these days.
But the Blue Rays sets are nice.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Yeah, it's amazing that you've got the theatrical, you've got
the Blue Ray, you've got the streaming. I mean that
just to have the e commerce, to be able to
have that reach, especially in a market like this these
days where everything is so fragmented.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
Personally, I'm a big collector. I'm not as big as
other people in the industry. I think about like vinegar
syndrome or something like that, where people are just buying
everything that they possibly can't number whatever, But personally, like
I do feel a lot of pride when I am
able to line up all the spines of the Blu
Rays or whatever in such a way that they match.
(13:43):
For when I think about the Ghibili collection, like the
way that it's nice that there's like uniformity across them,
or however you see it. And then my colleague Allison Cosberg,
who oversees home media, is put together some really amazing
products over the years, follow our stuff like the Misaki
Yuasa five film box set, the aforementioned Evangelian box sets,
(14:07):
and then We've also been working on Arcane, which is
the fourtiesh television show for Netflix, and Riot, the being
developer for League of Legends, and we have some really
awesome products there as well. So I say that because
I can't take credit for I can take credit for
purchasing them myself. So there you go.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
So, besides the upcoming we release of Linda Linda Linda,
what kind of stuff are you looking forward to seeing
coming out from G Kids this year?
Speaker 1 (14:35):
So I'm thinking a lot about Toronto because I'm headed
there tomorrow. But we have a really amazing film out
of France that's like a genuine discovery called Little Amili
or The Character of Rain. And this is an adaptation
of a Belgian novel from Amalin Notom that's sent me
out a biographical but it imagines the inner life of
(14:57):
I guess, a three year old. You could think of
it as a coming of age film in a kind
of weird way. She's a Belgian girl growing up in
Japan and basically reconciling with this idea that she doesn't
really belong there or is otherwise, you know, a foreign presence,
I guess, in a weird way. It does tie in
(15:17):
a little bit to Linda Linda Linda in the sense
of overcoming a language barrier or a cultural divide and
finding out who you are. But it's a really tremendous
film from the studio that did Calamity and Long Way North,
and so it's got this really cool, flat graphic style,
but it's got a surprising amount of depth and shine
to it for something like that, it's very different from
(15:38):
like the graphic style people associated with quote Unook cartoons.
And because of the literary source material, it's got a
lot of like screenplay depth that I think is really
uncommon among animated films generally speaking. That's our big kind
of prestige full title. And then, like I said, we
(15:59):
have a lot going on in the anime space as well.
We're working on the fortieth anniversary re release of Angels
Egg from Amroshi and Yoshtaka Amano, and we released the
poster and trailer for that a few weeks ago and
not got just amazing traction. That's a film similar to
Linda Linda Linda in terms of a long, long cult status,
(16:22):
a long period of on a availability, and it's a
lifelong gamer. I've always loved Yaka Amano's arts for Final Fantasy,
and so it's a great privilege to be working on
the film, and I think it'll have surprising traction, probably
in theaters for a seventy two minute film from forty
years ago. I think younger viewers today really want to
(16:44):
be challenged by films. I feel like Angels Egg is
like a real proving ground for that. Our big November
released this.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Yeah, that's another one I'm really excited to see. So
I'm stoked for that one too. Is there a good
place for people to keep up with what you guys
are doing out online?
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Yeah? Our Instagram account is my favorite place to keep
up with the stuff. But I guess that reveals me
to be a peak millennial. But our Instagram handles gee
kids films, and I feel like it's my favorite place
to engage with our like the stills from the films, posters, trailers,
(17:22):
just because so much of what we handle so visual.
I guess that's true for any film company, but especially
like the types of films that we're handling have this
like strong aesthetic pool to them that people just really
love to get into the replies on and I love
our social team. I think they do a really great
job of curating looks from the wide variety of films
(17:45):
that we're handling, both I guess animated and live action
films as we start to incorporate those as well.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Chance, thank you so much for your time. This is
great talking with you, sir.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Yeah, no, anytime. It's been really nice.
Speaker 3 (18:03):
Name me me da it's cusi nai shasi you usa
(18:26):
cusiza god goa lia is okuga.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
It's give me off the.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
Songkia song hioki sada say that men don't let me
(19:24):
me thank you Dory your name on yours.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
Don't let me me.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
Nanny yourn emo.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
Me me that that saga, it's a give me all the.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Oh toking up?
Speaker 3 (20:03):
Are you know? I shall he's donna to him all?
Oh he's donna to them or GB or.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
Can't shoot them up?
Speaker 3 (20:21):
Can I.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
E g.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
Bot You don't him to that? Is that?
Speaker 1 (20:51):
The bad?
Speaker 3 (20:52):
Is that.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
In the me that that Inda?
Speaker 2 (20:59):
No, that is that is that
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