Boston Underground Film Festival 2009

Inside the simple refrigerator exists a little-known world, a ruthless jungle where only the fittest survive. Cupcake battles mold, while bacteria seeks to conquer the land. A fierce, violent, bloody, black&white, J-gore battle ensues, climaxing along with the sounds of ok|ok, a New York-based avant/pop group known for their experimental and mind-twisting music. Yet, in the end, the victor is the snot-trailing human child, who, oblivious to the struggle for survival, swallows the cupcake without a thought, safe for now and not realizing that he too may one day be struggling to survive.Hand-drawn by Yohei Ito and Shingo Igata of the Japanese animation duo PECKS, this black&white animation is the first-time collaboration between PECKS and the New York-based avant/pop group ok|ok comprised of Kyoko Kitamura on voice/laptop, Mike McGinnis on clarinet, Khabu Doug Young on guitar and Tony Moreno on drums. How the collaboration started is a very New York-like tale: a young Japanese woman came to see an ok|ok show, started talking to Kitamura (it was the Japanese connection which led to a conversation, as it often does in the city) and disclosed that her brother made animation for MTV Japan. That brother turned out to be Yohei Ito, the older half of PECKS. Kitamura contacted Yohei during a trip to Japan and a collaboration was born, with the aim of timing it with the release of 'EATING MANTIS', ok|ok's debut CD.The animation took 9 months to create on a shoestring budget but the result was stunning, with the lack of financing becoming an interesting parameter to work with, leading to the black&white, pencil-on-paper, hand-drawn approach.