Japan’s Dwarf Studios is looking for a new partner for “Hidari,” the stop-motion samurai film voiced by Keanu Reeves, after talks with a U.S. company that offered to fund the entire budget in exchange for all rights stalled, producer Matsumoto Noriko told an audience at the Busan International Film Festival‘s Asian Contents & Film Market (ACFM) on Sunday. Dwarf Studios co-founder and head producer Matsumoto was speaking at “Co-Producing with Japan: Opportunities and Challenges,” a Producer Hub session co-hosted by VIPO. Japan is the Producer Hub’s focus country this year.
She was joined by Questry CEO Ibe Tomonobu and Knockonwood founder Yamaguchi Shin, with VIPO’s Tanimoto Hiroyuki moderating. Kawamura Masashi directs “Hidari,” produced by Dwarf, Whatever and Tecarat. Dwarf’s “Hidari” pitch was a highlight of the Annecy Animation Showcase at Cannes and at Annecy itself earlier this year.
A U.S. company’s offer to fund it came with a condition: it would take all the rights. Matsumoto said the company respected Dwarf’s creativity and was prepared to pay enough, but full funding would have left the studio with no control over a highly original project. Dwarf wanted to hold on to half the rights and asked Ibe to find the Japanese share.
Before the talks could go further, the people Matsumoto had been negotiating with lost their jobs amid upheaval in Hollywood, and Dwarf is now looking for a new partner. Questry has set up a special purpose company for “Hidari” so that overseas and local investors can put money into the film side by side. Ibe said the project shows why development money matters.
Dwarf made a pilot short in 2023 at its own risk, partly through crowdfunding, and the pilot traveled far enough to bring Reeves aboard. Questry now wants to back pilots and development-stage work, which in Japan studios and creators usually pay for themselves. The film could not have been financed in Japan alone, Ibe said, and the reason lies in how Japanese film and anime are usually funded.
Ibe spent 11 years at Goldman Sachs before founding Questry about four years ago. His presentation put the share of Japanese anime and films backed by production committees, or seisaku iinkai, at more than 90%, citing industry estimates. Publishers, labels, broadcasters, streamers, toy companies and ad agencies each put in a share, mainly to win a “window” – the right to exploit the title in their own business.
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