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Studio Ghibli Fest at Naro – Summer, 2025
Friday, August 8th through Thursday, August 14th!
Studio Ghibli has created beautiful and thought provoking animated films that have captivated audiences for generations through exquisite storytelling and dazzling visuals, primarily through the vision of the internationally acclaimed Japanese filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki. We are so pleased to bring back a summer selection of these innovative and cherished films.
Castle in the Sky
3 Screenings: Friday, August 8th at 6pm | Sunday, August 10th at 7:15pm | Wednesday, August 13th at 8:15pm
Young orphan Sheeta and her kidnapper, Col. Muska, are flying to a military prison when their plane is attacked by a gang of air pirates led by the matronly Dola. Escaping from a mid-air collision via a magic crystal around her neck, Sheeta meets fellow orphan Pazu and the pair join forces to discover the mystical floating city of Laputa while pursued by both Muska and the pirates, who lust for the city’s myriad treasures. (1989, PG, 2h 4m)
Spirited Away
4 Screenings: Sat., Aug. 9 at 5:45pm | Sun., Aug. 10 at 2pm | Tue., Aug. 12 at 8:30pm | Thu., Aug. 14 at 6pm
During her family’s move to the suburbs, a sullen 10-year-old girl wanders into a world ruled by gods, witches and spirits, and where humans are changed into beasts. The film that brought Ghibli to mainstream audiences. For a Western world raised on Disney traditions, Spirited Away offered something completely different – bearing an unapologetically-anime visual style and steeped in distinctly Japanese traditions. Just look at its grandiose bathhouse setting, its vibrant array of spirits, Haku’s flying dragon form, and the complex, nuanced approach to morality that’s far more complicated than the traditional good-vs-evil binary. Spirited Away feels truly mysterious and otherworldly with all kinds of unsettling imagery (Chihiro’s transformed piggy parents, and the spectral No-Face spirit in particular), anchored by an accessible coming-of-age core. (PG, 125m)
Kiki’s Delivery Service
3 Screenings: Saturday, August 9th at 1pm | Monday, August 11th at 4pm | Wednesday, August 13th at 6pm
A young witch, on her mandatory year of independent life, finds fitting into a new community difficult while she supports herself by running an air courier service. With its skybound female protagonist, sarcastic feline sidekick, and gently whimsical tone, Kiki’s Delivery Service is perhaps as important as My Neighbour Totoro in defining the Ghibli template. It’s an easygoing adventure about a youngster venturing out into the world for the first time – in this case the 13-year-old witch of the title, who leaves magic school and ventures to a European-inspired town and launches a broomstick courier service. The stakes are low, which is entirely the point – but Kiki’s world is rendered beautifully, with a soaring serenity to the flight sequences. (G, 103m)
SAVE TIME – BUY YOUR TICKETS ONLINE!
Princess Mononoke
3 Screenings: Sat., Aug 9 at 8:15pm | Sun. Aug. 10 at 4:30pm | Thu., Aug. 14 at 8:30pm
On a journey to find the cure for a Tatarigami’s curse, Ashitaka finds himself in the middle of a war between the forest gods and Tatara, a mining colony. This is Studio Ghibli at its most epic – a thunderous medieval fantasy akin to Lord Of The Rings in its mythological scope. It’s darker and more violent than much of the studio’s fare (prepare for exploding hogs and lopped limbs a-plenty) but the harshness is balanced out by spine-tingling imagery – try not to be transfixed by the eerie beauty of the forest spirit. Taking in warring human factions, ancient oozing curses, giant wolf tribes, and marauding demons, it’s a monumental piece of folklore, thrillingly realised by Miyazaki. Bonus: its English-language dub is brilliantly handled by none other than Neil Gaiman. Featuring the voice acting of Claire Danes, Billy Bob Thornton, Gillian Anderson, Billy Crudup, and Minnie Driver. (PG-13, 134m)
SAVE TIME – BUY YOUR TICKETS ONLINE!
The Boy and the Heron
3 Screenings: Friday, August 8th at 8:30pm | Saturday, August 9th at 3:15pm | Tuesday, August 12th at 6pm
Oscar Nominated for Best Animated Feature Film!
From the legendary Studio Ghibli and Academy Award®-winning director Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away) comes a new critically-acclaimed fantasy adventure. After losing his mother during the war, young Mahito moves to his family’s estate in the countryside. There, a series of mysterious events lead him to a secluded and ancient tower, home to a mischievous gray heron. When Mahito’s new stepmother disappears, he follows the gray heron into the tower, and enters a fantastic world shared by the living and the dead. As he embarks on an epic journey with the heron as his guide, Mahito must uncover the secrets of this world, and the truth about himself. (PG-13, 2h 4m)
“A triumphant film that, as expected, is as enthralling as it is occasionally confounding. I have seen The Boy and the Heron twice, yet I still cannot fully explain it to you.” – Odie Henderson, Boston Globe
“Filled with elegantly rendered imagery that few other animated features could approach, it’s another lovely, lively fable that weaves a magical spell and is filled with ache and layered meaning.” – Randy Myers, San Jose Mercury News