Ghibli at GFC 2025: Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984)
Director: Hayao Miyazaki Run Time: 117 min. Rating: PG Release Year: 1984
Starring: Alison Lohman, Chris Sarandon, Edward James Olmos, Patrick Stewart, Shia LaBeouf, Uma Thurman
Country: Japan
Language: Japanese with English subtitles | Matinee screenings presented in English
A Film Center tradition, embark on a magical journey into the enchanting world of Studio Ghibli with Ghibli at GFC 2025 this spring.
About the film:
Written and directed by Academy Award-winner Hayao Miyazaki, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984) is an epic masterpiece of sweeping scope and grandeur that remains one of the most breathtaking and exhilarating animated films of all time.
A thousand years after the Seven Days of Fire destroyed civilization, warring human factions survive in a world devastated by atmospheric poisons and swarming with gigantic insects. The peaceful Valley of the Wind is nestled on the edge of the Toxic Forest and led by the courageous Princess Nausicaä, whose love of all living things leads her into terrible danger, as she fights to restore balance between humans and nature.
“[Miyazaki’s] nature-first, humanity-second approach to environmentalism began here…these ideas were never more pure than in their first assembly, gathered by an idealistic young Japanese animator on the verge of changing the medium with his vision.”
—Brian Eggert, Deep Focus
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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