San Sebastian Film Festival Honors Hayao Miyazaki with Donostia Award – News

The San Sebastian Film Festival (SSIFF) announced on Friday that it is awarding Hayao Miyazaki the honorary Donostia Award for career achievement. Miyazaki will virtually receive the award during the event’s opening ceremony on September 22.

This year’s SSIFF will open with the European premiere of Hayao Miyazaki‘s latest feature film The Boy and the Heron (Kimi-tachi wa Dō Ikiru ka, or literally How Do You Live?) out of competition. The film will screen at the Kursaal Auditorium on September 22 after the opening gala.

This will mark Miyazaki’s fourth film to screen at SSIFF, and the first time his film is participating at the event’s Official Selection. The 71st annual SSIFF will take place in Donostia-San Sebastián, Spain from September 22-30.

GKIDS licensed the film. The New York Film Festival (NYFF) will screen the film’s U.S. premiere as an Official Selection in the Spotlight selection. The 61st NYFF will take place from September 29-October 15.

The film had its international premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), as the event’s opening film on Thursday at Roy Thomson Hall.

The film opened simultaneously on IMAX with its general release in Japan on July 14. The film earned more than Miyazaki’s celebrated Academy Award-winning 2001 film Spirited Away in its first four days, and earned 50% more than his 2013 film The Wind Rises. The film exceeded US$1.7 million from 44 IMAX screens, which is a new three-day opening record, according to entertainment news website Deadline. The film sold 1.003 million tickets and earned about US$13.2 million in its first three days in Japan. The film sold 1.353 million tickets and earned 2.149 billion yen (about US$15.53 million) in its Friday-Monday long weekend (July 17 was the Marine Day holiday in Japan).

Miyazaki rose to prominence in the 1970s on such television anime series as Lupin III, Future Boy Conan, and Sherlock Hound. He directed his first feature film, Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro, in 1979. He then adapted the beginning of his Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind manga into an anime film in 1984, before he and fellow director Isao Takahata founded Studio Ghibli.

With Ghibli, Miyazaki helmed the feature films Laputa: Castle in the Sky, My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki’s Delivery Service, Porco Rosso, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle, Ponyo, and The Wind Rises. He also co-produced Takahata’s directorial efforts and directed smaller projects such as the “experimental film” On Your Mark and Ghibli Museum Shorts such as Mei and the Kitten Bus and Mr. Dough and the Egg Princess.

Sources: SSIFF, Deadline (Zac Ntim)