Daft Punk’s “Intersella 5555” is ready to touch down in Los Angeles.
The animated feature, based on the band’s 2001 album “Discovery,” from director Kazuhisa Takenouchi with supervision from Leiji Matsumoto, recently received a new 4K remaster and had screened in various cities across the world. Now, it finally comes to Los Angeles on Monday, Sept. 30, at the United Theater on Broadway. Tickets go on sale at noon, September 23.
The screening is being put on by Daft Punk and IHEARTCOMIX. A moderated panel with “Interstella 555” co-writer Cédric Hervet and Pedro Winter, Daft Punk’s former manager, who was instrumental in the creation of the movie, will follow the screening. After that will be an after-party with a DJ set by Winter (in his Busy P guise), plus secret guests.
“Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem” was a unique project, especially at the time. It was conceived during the production of the album (Matsumoto was a hero to the young band, thanks to his work on projects like “Space Battleship Yamato”), with animation handled by legendary Japanese studio Toei Animation. Instead of actual music videos from the album, outlets like Cartoon Network’s Toonami programming block would instead run clips from “Interstella 5555.” The dialogue-free film, which runs a little more than an hour, follows a band of blue-skinned aliens known as the Crescendolls as they work to defeat intergalactic evil with their very catchy tunes.
The film premiered at Cannes on May 18, 2003, followed by a theatrical release later that month. There was a long out-of-print DVD release of the film and a similarly hard to find Blu-ray (released back in 2011). The band played the entire movie earlier this year on “Daft Punk Day,” the anniversary of the day the robots (née Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo) called it quits. This new 4K remaster has been screened twice this year, in Paris and as part of the Tribeca Film Festival, which signaled its North American premiere.
The remastered “Interstella 5555” will have its big Los Angeles premiere on Monday, Sept. 30, at the United Theater on Broadway (929 S. Broadway, Los Angeles, CA 90015). Doors open at 7 p.m. PT, with the screening at 8 p.m. PT. It’s going to be out of this world.
