Filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki's last film The Boy and the Heron will open at this year's Toronto Film Festival on September 7, the festival announced on social media.
The film is attached to Studio Ghibli and released in Japan on July 14, and will release in North America sometime later this year. About the film's opening at the festival, Cameron Bailey, CEO of TIFF, was quoted as saying, "[w]e are honored to open the 48th Toronto International Film Festival with the work of one of cinema’s greatest artists. Already acclaimed as a masterpiece in Japan, Hayao Miyazaki’s new film begins as a simple story of loss and love and rises to a staggering work of imagination."
The Boy and the Heron released in Japan as Kimitachi wa Di Ikiruka, which means How Do You Live? While Miyazaki has written the story, it is backed by Toshio Suzuki. Joe Hisaishi has scored the music. It was speculated that the film is based on Genzaburo Yoshino’s 1937 book Kimitachi wa Do Ikiruka which is about a teenage boy going through a spiritual journey, as he begins to understand life and its meaning through a journal related to his uncle. However, the makers later confirmed that the film is made out of an original story by the filmmaker.
