Bullets 'n' Babes

JUNK HEAD started as a 30 minute stop motion short film, which can still be watched - with English subtitles, even - here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ge18Ieyi9bI

A few years ago, the director tried to raise funds for what he, at the time called JUNK HEAD 2 via indiegogo. I don't know how that went or how he did it, but there is a 114 minute version of JUNK HEAD premiering at Fantastic Fest and I can't wait to find out more. All they say for now is that the completed work took him 7 years to complete and that he did everything entirely by himself.

The story is summarized like this:

Humanity is dying. It’s been 1200 years since our rebellious clone workforce moved underground, and the only way we can survive is by plunging into the depths to learn more about our terrifying creations.

Yes, please.

I saw the short film a few years ago and liked it.

I didn't know he had managed to make feature length version.

A glowing recent review states that the film is currently unreleasable outside of the festival circuit due to rights issues, which strikes me as bizarre considering it was all made by a singe dude over 7 years.

Unfortunately, if you don't have a chance to see Junk Head at a festival, you basically just don't have a chance to see it right now, thanks to somewhat opaque and frustrating rights-holder issues. That's something of a travesty, because it's a staggeringly likeable movie that would almost certainly garner a sizeable cult following if it had a chance.

No mention of those rights-holder issues but allegedly Hori spent the last 5 years reworking the feature-length version, which is now being shown at Fantasia:

https://fantasiafestival.com/en/film/junk-head

It's been playing in theatres here in Japan since earlier this year. The local small multiplex played it for like 4 or 5 months straight.

The sequel, JUNK WORLD, is coming out in June:

https://junkworld-movie.com/