Ghibli at GFC 2024: Howl’s Moving Castle (2004) 20th Anniversary
Director: Hayao Miyazaki Run Time: 119 min. Rating: PG Release Year: 2004
Starring: Billy Crystal, Christian Bale, Emily Mortimer, Jean Simmons, Josh Hutcherson, Lauren Bacall
Country: Japan
Language: English; select screenings in Japanese with English subtitles
Celebrate the magical worlds of Studio Ghibli, this Spring Season at Gateway Film Center!
See the Ghibli at GFC 2024 lineupAbout the film:
From acclaimed director Hayao Miyazaki and the legendary Studio Ghibli, comes the Academy Award-nominated romantic fantasy adventure based on the beloved book by Diana Wynne Jones.
Sophie, a quiet girl working in a hat shop, finds her life thrown into turmoil when she is literally swept off her feet by a handsome but mysterious wizard named Howl. The vain and vengeful Witch of the Waste, jealous of their friendship, puts a curse on Sophie and turns her into a 90-year-old woman. On a quest to break the spell, Sophie climbs aboard Howl’s magnificent moving castle and into a new life of wonder and adventure. But as the true power of Howl’s wizardry is revealed, Sophie finds herself fighting to protect them both from a dangerous war of sorcery that threatens their world.
“Howl’s Moving Castle has the logic of a dream: behind every door lie multiple realities, one more astonishing than the next.”
—David Ansen, News Week
About the filmmaker:
One of Japan’s most distinctive filmmakers, Hayao Miyazaki’s stories consider the conflict between human progress and nature with the existence of the spirit world alongside the mundane. Before founding Studio Ghibli, he worked for various animation studios and crafted his first feature films Lupin III: Castle of Cagliostro (1979) and Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984). With fellow animator and longtime collaborator, Takahata Isao, he launched Studio Ghibli in 1985 and began producing some of most iconic hand-drawn animated films of all time, including My Neighbor Totoro (1988), Princess Mononoke (1997), Spirited Away (2001), Howl’s Moving Castle (2004), Ponyo (2008), and The Wind Rises (2013). In 2015, Miyazaki received an honorary Academy Award for his impact on animation and cinema, and his most recent film The Boy and the Heron (2023) won Best International Feature.
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