Double Feature: SPIRITED AWAY (SEN TO CHIHIRO NO KAMIKAKUSHI), POM POKO January 25, 2013

Friday, January 25 – 7:30 PM
Double Feature: SPIRITED AWAY (SEN TO CHIHIRO NO KAMIKAKUSHI), 2001, Studio Ghibli, 125 min. Director Hayao Miyazaki’s Academy Award-winning masterpiece was the biggest box office hit of all time in Japan and a film that helped redefine the possibilities of animation for American audiences and a generation of new filmmakers. Wandering through an abandoned carnival site, 10-year-old Chichiro is separated from her parents and stumbles into a dreamlike spirit world where she is put to work in a bathhouse for the gods, where all kinds of nonhuman beings come to refresh, relax and recharge. Here she encounters a vast menagerie of impossibly inventive characters - shape-shifting phantoms and spirits, some friendly, some less so - and must find the inner strength to outsmart her captors and return to her family. In Japanese with English subtitles.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2BM6ACeiVs
POM POKO, 1994, Studio Ghibli, 119 min. Dir. Isao Takahata. In this brilliant and often overlooked Studio Ghibli masterpiece, the forests are filled with groups of magical tanuki, mischievous raccoon-like animals from Japanese folklore that are capable of shape-shifting from their standard raccoon form to practically any object. The tanuki spend their days playing idly in the hillsides and squabbling over food - until the construction of a huge new Tokyo suburb clears the nearby forest and threatens their way of life. In an effort to defend their home, the tanuki learn to transform into humans and start playing tricks to make the workers think the construction site is haunted, ending in a spectacular night-time spirit parade, with thousands of ghosts, dragons and other magical creatures descending on the city. Recommended ages: 7 to Adult. In Japanese with English subtitles.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKVEUDqJ4mo

Official Website: http://www.americancinemathequecalendar.com/egyptian_theatre_events