Studio Ghibli, the acclaimed Japanese animation house known for Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro and Oscar-winner The Boy And The Heron, is to receive an honorary Palme d’Or at Cannes – the first time the festival has bestowed the award on a group.
The honour is usually awarded to individuals, which has included Tom Cruise, Michael Douglas and Harrison Ford in recent years and will also be given to Star Wars creator George Lucas at the 77th edition of the festival, which runs May 14-25.
Studio Ghibli is synonymous with veteran directors Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata, who are among the stable of filmmakers to have made iconic animated features under the banner over the past four decades.
Toshio Suzuki, co-founder of Studio Ghibli, said: “40 years ago, Hayao Miyazaki, Isao Takahata and I established Studio Ghibli with the desire to bring high-level, high-quality animation to children and adults of all ages. Today, our films are watched by people all over the world, and many visitors come to the Ghibli Museum, Mitaka and Ghibli Park to experience the world of our films for themselves.
“We have truly come a long way for Studio Ghibli to become such a big organisation. Although Miyazaki and I have aged considerably, I am sure that Studio Ghibli will continue to take on new challenges, led by the staff who will carry on the spirit of the company.”
Awarding the honour to a group for the first time, Cannes president Iris Knobloch and festival director Thierry Frémaux said: “Like all the icons of the seventh art, these characters populate our imaginations with prolific, colourful universes and sensitive, engaging narrations. With Ghibli, Japanese animation stands as one of the great adventures of cinephilia, between tradition and modernity”.
Miyazaki’s films have traditionally premiered at the likes of Venice, Toronto and the Berlinale (where Spirited Away won the Golden Bear in 2002) but Takahata’s The Tale Of The Princess Kaguya did screen in Directors’ Fortnight in 2014 and The Red Turtle, Studios Ghibli’s first collaboration with a European production company, played in Un Certain Regard in 2016.
The studio launched in 1985, following the success of Miyazaki’s Nausicaä Of The Valley Of The Wind in 1984. In 1988, Takahata’s Grave Of The Fireflies was released as a double feature in Japan with Miyazaki’s My Neighbor Totoro, cementing their success.
In 1992, Studio Ghibli began financing its own features with Miyazaki’s Porco Rosso and young auteurs such as Goro Miyazaki and Hiromasa Yonebayashi joined the studio.
It has gone on to produce more than 20 features to date that have also included Pom Poko, Princess Mononoke, My Neighbors The Yamadas and The Wind Rises. The Ghibli Museum opened on the outskirts of Tokyo in 2001 to showcase the animators’ work as well as to show short films created for the museum and Ghibli Park opened in Japan’s Aichi Prefecture in 2022, overseen by Goro Miyazaki.
Most recently, Miyazaki’s The Boy And The Heron won the Oscar for best animated feature film in March, having previously won the Academy Award for Spirited Away in 2003 and receiving two further Oscar nominations for Howl’s Moving Castle and The Wind Rises in 2006 and 2014. While The Boy And The Heron is understood to be the final film of 83-year-old Miyazaki, the director has not announced plans to retire.
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