Preview: Patema Inverted (2013)

What if your world was turned upside down... literally? That's the situation heroine Patema finds herself in Yasuhiro Yoshiura's new animated feature Patema Inverted. The princess of an underground land, she falls down a pit and discovers a world where everything is, as the title suggests, inverted. Up is down, and down is up, the floor is the ceiling and vice versa....

In this confusing new world is under tyrannical rule, and the underground folks are seen as the enemy. Luckily, Patema finds a kindred spirit in the form of a teenage boy named Age. But can she escape and return home?

Released in Japanese cinemas last year, this was actually adapted from a four part series created in 2012 for online streaming. The movie has already screened to great acclaim elsewhere, winning plaudits at France's Annecy animation festival, and taking home both audience and jury prizes at last year's Scotland Loves Anime.

Wider audiences will now get the chance to sample the film themselves, as Anime Limited are bringing it to UK cinema screens starting on May 2nd 2014.  It's also getting a couple of screenings at the Japanese Film Festival Ireland on April 11th and 16th. A home release will follow.

GKids have the rights to screen the film in North America, but no release date has been revealed so far.  You can check out the official trailer below.