Double Feature: SPIRITED AWAY (SEN TO CHIHIRO NO KAMIKAKUSHI), PORCO ROSSO, March 22, 2013

Friday, March 22 – 7:30 PM
Double Feature: SPIRITED AWAY (SEN TO CHIHIRO NO KAMIKAKUSHI), 2001, Studio Ghibli, 125 min. Dir. Hayao Miyazaki. 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 dream-like spirit world where she is put to work in a bathhouse for the gods, a place 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. Combining Japanese mythology with Through the Looking Glass-type whimsy, SPIRITED AWAY cemented Miyazaki’s reputation as an icon of inspired animation and wondrous, lyrical storytelling. “Prepare to be astonished” - Los Angeles Times “Epic and marvelous! Phantasmagoric!” - New York Times “One of the year’s best films!” - Roger Ebert. In Japanese with English subtitles. {35mm}
PORCO ROSSO, 1992, Studio Ghibli, 94 min. Dir. Hayao Miyazaki. This unsung treasure from Hayao Miyazaki nestles a tale of morality and identity inside a soaring airborne adventure - a tribute to early aviation and the reckless flyboys whose home was the open sky. Set in a mid WWII Italy swept by fascism, the film follows Marco, a world-weary flying ace-turned bounty hunter who plies his trade above the waters of the Adriatic. Somewhere along the way a curse has transformed Marco’s head into that of a pig, reflecting his loss of faith in humanity. Marco meets his polar opposite in the innocent and energetic 17-year-old Fio, an aspiring airplane designer, and the two are catapulted into an airborne adventure pursued by air pirates, the Italian army and an egotistical American flying ace. In Japanese with English subtitles. {35mm}

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