petronia

smurfmatic actually filmed and youtubed the opening speeches by the festival organizers and the director:

Tekkon Kinkreet (trailer): freely adapted from Black and White by Taiyo Matsumoto (also the author of Ping Pong). I haven't read the manga but the script is well above par for an anime feature film adaptation. It's already had successful theatre runs in Japan and France and is opening in the US in a couple of weeks. According to the director exit surveys indicate the movie is most popular with university-age young women. As this demographic forms the majority of my flist and demonstrates sizeable overlap with aficionados of both yakuza flicks and 男の子の純愛物語 (à la Ping Pong [1]), I reckon you should all go see it when it comes out. XD

The big buzz is that this is the first major Japanese animated feature to be directed by an American (Michael Arias, who also worked on The Animatrix), but in the end probably what matters more is that it was directed by a Troo Fan. In the Q&A the director talked about the software he developed to give computer animation the warmth and vibrancy of hand-painted cels (something about how no two batches of paint are ever exactly the same), and how he would make demos out of Tekkon Kinkreet because he loved the manga, which eventually led to meetings with Taiyo Matsumoto and a proper go-ahead. It really looks the labour of love it is; both the still and animation work are gorgeous throughout. The soundtrack - by Plaid, of all people - is also lovely, and very much in their usual style (director: "I figured if all else failed, I'd still get my own Plaid album out of the project").

The main characters are children but the film is not-for-kids as there's quite a bit of blood and brutality and psychological horror (City of God was cited as an influence, and Francis Bacon - the painter not the writer). Despite this there's something Miyazaki-esque about it: sense of innocence and aerial freedom, organic urban landscapes, kindness and community found where least expected.

[1] Or GetBackers - a certain disconcerting resemblance, there.