Studio Ghibli’s The Boy and the Heron gets North American screening date in September

Hayao Miyazaki’s new anime movie will be seen for the first time in North America in Canada.

In recent years, online streaming has made near-simultaneous international releases for anime TV series the norm. It’s a different story with anime movies, though, which often release in Japanese theaters long before they screen overseas.

That wait is all the more excruciating when the movie in question is The Boy and the Heron (titled How Do You Live? in Japan), the latest anime from Studio Ghibli and director Hayao Miyazaki, and having to be patient is triply tough when the movie’s purposeful lack of a trailer or any other preview images is keeping anyone who hasn’t seen it in theaters completely in the dark about what to expect. Thankfully, the first confirmed screening of The Boy and the Heron outside Japan has been set, and it’s Toronto, Canada, that’s the lucky site.

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『#君たちはどう生きるか』
第48回トロント国際映画祭
オープニング上映作品に決定
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アカデミー賞前哨戦とも呼ばれるトロント国際映画祭で、
“邦画初”、そして、アニメーション作品としては‟世界初“のオープニング上映作品に選出されました！#スタジオジブリ#宮﨑駿 pic.twitter.com/ppi4vEjkI7

— 東宝映画情報【公式】 (@toho_movie) July 27, 2023

The Boy and the Heron will be the first film shown at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, screening as part of its Opening Night Gala Presentation on September 7. The movie’s Japanese distributor, Toho, announced the screening in the above tweet. The TIFF website designates this as the movie’s “international premiere,” listing a runtime of 124 minutes and describing it as “a simple story of loss and love [that] rises to a staggering work of imagination.” “I look forward to our audience discovering its mysteries for themselves, but I can promise a singular, transformative experience,” added TIFF CEO Cameron Bailey.

This won’t be the first time for a Ghibli film to be showcased at the Toronto International Film Festival, which in previous years held screenings for Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, From Up on Poppy Hill, and The Princess Kaguya. The Boy and the Heron will however, be the first Japanese movie to be the opening film shown for an iteration of the festival, as well as the first animated feature to do so.

No details have been provided regarding the format (subtitled or dubbed) The Boy and the Heron will screen in, nor whether the translation will be prepared by the movie’s North American distributor, GKIDS, or is being done by a different team exclusively for the festival screening. GKIDS says it intends to release The Boy and the Heron in North American before the end of the year.

Source: Twitter/@toho_movie, Toronto International Film Festival (1, 2)
Top image: Studio Ghibli
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