Studio Ghibli’s The Boy and the Heron anime movie has won the Best Animated Film award at the 77th British Academy Film Awards (BAFTA). The award ceremony was held on February 18 at the Royal Festival Hall, London, United Kingdom. GKIDS, which has licensed the film for theatrical release in North America, posted a congratulatory post on its official X (Twitter) account:
The Boy and the Heron won over other nominated films including Pixar’s Elemental, Aardman Animation’s Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget, and Marvel’s Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. Hayao Miyazaki and Toshio Suzuki did not appear during the ceremony, with the award received by BAFTA’s presenters Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott.
The recent win adds to the film’s growing list of accolades, including a Golden Globes award, as well as US-based Los Angeles Film Critics Association, New York Film Critics Circle Awards, San Diego Film Critic Society, Chicago Film Critics Association, Boston Society of Film Critics, Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Dallas Forth-Worth Film Critics Association, and the Florida Film Critic Circle. The movie also received a nomination for the 96th Academy Awards under the Best Animated Feature category. The ceremony will be held on March 10.
The Boy and the Heron first made its international premiere at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) on September 7, 2023, then debuted in the US at the 61st New York Film Festival, which ran from September 29 to October 15, 2023.
The Boy and the Heron is directed by Hayao Miyazaki, produced by Toshio Suzuki, and with music by Joe Hisashi. Kenshi Yonezu performed the film’s theme song titled “Spinning Globe.” The official Japanese title for the film can be translated as How Do You Live and shares the name with a novel by Yoshino Genzaburo, first published in 1937. The novel was republished in 1945 by Mira-sha Publishers following World War II. Barnes and Noble describe the plot as:
How Do You Live? is narrated in two voices. The first belongs to Copper, fifteen, who after the death of his father must confront inevitable and enormous change, including his own betrayal of his best friend. In between episodes of Copper’s emerging story, his uncle writes to him in a journal, sharing knowledge and offering advice on life’s big questions as Copper begins to encounter them. Over the course of the story, Copper, like his namesake Copernicus, looks to the stars, and uses his discoveries about the heavens, earth, and human nature to answer the question of how he will live.
Source: BAFTA Official Website
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