For members at the Explore category and above, tickets will become available two weeks before the screening date, starting at 10:30 a.m. Additional tickets will be available to members and the general public one week before the screening date, also at 10:30 a.m. Please note that space is extremely limited and tickets will be in high demand.
The Boy and the Heron. 2023. Japan. Written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki. DCP. Courtesy GKIDS. In Japanese; English subtitles. 124 min.
Hayao Miyazaki’s first film in 10 years—reportedly the last from the great master of Studio Ghibli—is less a swan song than the testament of a director boldly reinventing himself. Set during the Second World War, The Boy and the Heron follows 12-year-old Mahito as he settles uneasily into a new countryside home following the tragic death of his mother and his father’s subsequent remarriage. A talking gray heron, a dogged presence in this new environment, confounds the boy, ultimately ushering him into an underground journey where fate, family, and fantasy converge. The beguiling and heartwarming tale unfolds as a kaleidoscopic tour through Miyazaki’s oeuvre, as painterly landscapes lead into uncanny dream worlds, all resonating with the director’s own childhood in wartime Japan. Endlessly imaginative, this long-anticipated film is a moving meditation on the passage of time.