The San Sebastian Film Festival (SSIFF) announced on Friday that it will present Hayao Miyazaki with an honorary Donostia Award for career achievement. Miyazaki will virtually receive the award during the event’s opening ceremony on September 22.
Image via SSIFF Twitter account
This year’s SSIFF will open with the European premiere of Hayao Miyazaki’s latest film The Boy and the Heron (Kimi-tachi wa Dō Ikiru ka, or literally How Do You Live?) and has no competition. painting. The film will be screened at Kursaal Auditorium on September 22 after the opening gala.
This will be Miyazaki’s fourth film to screen at SSIFF and the first time his film has participated in the event’s Official Selection. The 71st annual SSIFF will take place in Donostia-San Sebastián, Spain from September 22 to 30.
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GKIDS licensed the film. The New York Film Festival (NYFF) will screen the film’s U.S. premiere as an Official Selection in its Spotlight selection. The 61st NYFF will take place from September 29 to October 15.
The film had its international premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), opening the event on Thursday at Roy Thomson Hall.
The film opened simultaneously on IMAX and in wide release in Japan on July 14. The film earned more than Miyazaki’s 2001 Oscar-winning hit Spirited Away in its first four days of release. and earned 50% more than his 2013 film The Wind Rises. According to entertainment news website Deadline, the film surpassed $1.7 million from 44 IMAX theaters, which is a new record for the opening three days. The film sold 1.003 million tickets and earned about 13.2 million USD in the first three days of release in Japan. The film sold 1.353 million tickets and earned 2.149 billion yen (about US$15.53 million) over the long weekend from Friday to Monday (July 17 is the Marine Corps Day holiday in Japan).
Miyazaki became famous in the 1970s on animated television series such as Lupine III, Future Boy Conan and Sherlock Hound. He directed his first feature film, Lupine III: The Castle of Cagliostro, in 1979. He then adapted the first part of the manga Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind into an animated film in 1984, before when he and co-director Isao Takahata founded Studio Ghibli.
With Ghibli, Miyazaki directed the feature films Laputa: Castle in the Sky, My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki’s Delivery Service, Porco Rosso, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle, Ponyo and The Wind Rises. He also co-produced Takahata’s directorial efforts and directed smaller projects such as the “experimental film” On Your Mark and Ghibli Museum Shorts such as Mei and the Kitten Bus and Mr. Dough and the Egg Princess.
Source: SSIFF, Deadline (Zac Ntim)
