Friday, July 17, 2026 at 9:45 PM
Vidiots, Los Angeles
**Screenwriter:** Sadayuki Murai **Producers:** Hitomi Nakagaki, Yoshihisa Ishihara, Yutaka Tōgō, Masao Maruyama, Hiroaki Inoue Visionary director Satoshi Kon brings us this intense animated psychological thriller for the social media era. Rising pop star Mima has quit singing to pursue a career as an actress and model, but her fans aren’t ready to see her go, and when she takes on a recurring role on a popular TV show, suddenly her handlers and collaborators begin turning up dead. Harboring feelings of guilt and haunted by visions of her former self, Mima’s reality and fantasy meld into a frenzied paranoia. As her stalker closes in, in person and online, the threat he poses is more real than even Mima knows. Considered an undeniable animated classic, *Perfect Blue* is the debut film from legendary director Satoshi Kon, who would go on to gift us *Millennium Actress*, *Tokyo Godfathers*, and *Paprika. *Hailed as the first animated film to feature an authentic psychological suspense story, this film was acclaimed at international film festivals and was released in theaters in Japan in 1998. Blending a play within a play, the story unfolds as fiction and reality, dreams and delusions, and cyberspace intertwine—like an optical illusion.