Bakemono No Ko (The boy and the beast) the first animated film to compete for the Golden Shell. Its director, Mamoru Hosada, was pleased to be making history at the Festival, and he pointed out that the fact that it had included his film in the Official Section showed that this was a really innovative festival. “I think that it’s wrong to categorise films; what does it matter whether they are animated or with real characters!”

The boy and the beast has certain parallels with his previous film Wolf Children, and Hosada, who set up his own animation studio in 2011 pointed out: “the search for identity is a constant feature in my work. All teenagers go through a phase of searching for their identity and the family usually provides their support. In this case the main character is also looking for a family, even though he does so in a world full of monsters.”