Studio Ghibli, Past & Present

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Parent Category: Film Festivals

Category: Previews

Published on Saturday, 10 December 2011 05:00

Written by L E Shannon

The Studio Ghibli Film Retrospective is being held December 16, 2011 - January 12, 2012 at IFC Center in Manhattan's Greenwich Village, New York City.

Presented by GKIDS, a distributor of award winning animation for all ages, the series is a complete retrospective -- all 15 films -- of Japan's world famous animation studio.

Studio Ghibli was founded in 1985 by animation directors Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata and is one of the most successful and well-respected animation studios in the world.

Miyazaki’s Spirited Away won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature in 2002 and in 2005 Miyazaki was named one of "the most influential people" by TIME Magazine.

Says Eric Beckman, GKIDS president, "I am both excited and deeply honored to be working with Studio Ghibli to bring this amazing slate of films to theaters across North America. I am in continual awe of the brilliance of the animation, the depth and humanity of the storytelling, and of the filmmakers’ understanding that even the youngest audiences are capable of appreciating all the subtlety and nuance that cinema has to offer.

Miyazaki has said, "Children understand the complexity and uncertainty of things almost with their skin. They cannot be underestimated."

Beginning with Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, from 1984, the series spans the years and culminates in the North American premiere of the latest Ghibli film, The Secret World of Arrietty. Based on Mary Norton’s award-winning novel series The Borrowers, Arrietty is due for U.S. release in February 2012.

Two other films are North American premieres, having rarely been seen outside of Japan:

• Only Yesterday, dir. Isao Takahata (1991)
• The Ocean Waves, dir. Tomomi Mochizuki (1993)

The Series is launched with the screening of Kiki's Delivery Service (1989), followed by:

• My Neighbor Totoro (1988)
• Princess Mononoke (1997)
• Howl’s Moving Castle (2004)
• Whisper of the Heart (1995)
• Castle in the Sky (1986)
• Spirited Away (2001)
• The Cat Returns (2002)
• Porco Rosso (1992)
• Ponyo (2008)
• My Neighbors The Yamadas (1999)
• My Neighbor Totoro (1988)
• Pom Poko (1994)

The Retrospective will be touring to other cities, including Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington DC, Toronto, Boston, San Francisco and Seattle, during the first half of 2012.

For more information, visit www.ifccenter.com/series and click on "Castles in the Sky: Miyazaki, Takahata & the Masters of Studio Ghibli".

Studio Ghibli Film Retrospective
December 16, 2011 - January 12, 2012

IFC Center
323 Sixth Avenue
New York City

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