NEW CHITOSE 2026 Signal Film

This film is the official trailer for the 13th New Chitose Airport International Animation Festival, held inside New Chitose Airport in Hokkaido, Japan.
The idea came from my experience of attending the festival the previous year. What stayed with me was the feeling of the festival temporarily appearing inside the everyday space of the airport. People are constantly arriving, leaving, and passing through, but during the festival another kind of space briefly emerges within that flow.
I wanted to translate that experience into the film. We wanted the visuals to feel a little like a mirage — something that appears, changes form, and disappears again.
To express that idea, we used a single visual rule for every appearance and disappearance throughout the film. People, architecture, objects, and abstract forms continuously emerge, dissolve, and transform into one another, creating a sense that the entire world of the film is temporarily taking shape and then fading away.
The film gradually brings these different elements together toward the cinema screen. For me, the important part was that the motion was not added afterwards simply as an effect. The way things appear and disappear is directly connected to the idea of the festival itself: people gather for a short period of time, share the same place and experience, and then disperse again.