Free Screening of ‘Letter to Momo’ in Torrance

Momo and a yokai in a scene from Hiroyuki Okiura’s “A Letter to Momo.”

TORRANCE — The Japan Foundation Los Angeles will host a free screening of “A Letter to Momo” (120 minutes, 2012), directed by Hiroyuki Okiura, on Sunday, Oct. 4, at 2 p.m. at the James R. Armstrong Theatre, 3330 Civic Center Dr. in Torrance.

Reservations are not required. For more information on free Japanese cinema screenings and other Japan Foundation programs, visit www.jflalc.org.

From the creators of “Ghost in the Shell” comes a wonderfully expressive and beautifully hand-drawn animated tale that combines bursts of whimsy and kinetic humor with deeply felt emotion and drama.

The last time Momo saw her father they had a fight — and now all she has left to remember him by is an incomplete letter, a blank piece of paper penned with the words “Dear Momo” but nothing more.

Moving with her mother to the remote Japanese island of Shio, Momo soon discovers three yokai living in her attic, a trio of mischievous spirit creatures that only she can see and who create mayhem in the tiny seaside community as she tries desperately to keep them hidden. But these funny monsters have a serious side and may hold the key to helping Momo discover what her father had been trying to tell her.

“A Letter to Momo” was seven years in the making, and the handmade animation is superb, from the painstakingly rendered serenity of the island’s Shinto shrines to the climactic finale — a frantic chase featuring thousands of squirming, morphing ghosts and spirits that is the best cinematic flight of supernatural fancy in many years.

This screening is co-organized by the Torrance Cultural Arts Foundation and supported by the Japan Business Association of Southern California.