Film
Mary and the Witch’s Flower
- Director
- Hiromasa Yonebayashi
- Certificate
- TBA
- Running Time
- 103 mins
A little girl finds a magic flower that turns her into a witch for a night and whisks her off to the Hogwarts-esque (just sayin’, m’lud) Endor College of Witches.
If this looks and sounds very Ghibli-esque, that’s because it’s the first film from Howl’s Moving Castle producer Yoshiaki Nishimura‘s new company Studio Ponoc. He left Studio Ghibli following the retirement of Oscar-winning director Hayayo Miyazaki in 2015, taking several animators with him. As with so many Ghibli hits, it’s actually based on a story by a British children’s writer – namely Mary Stewart‘s 1971 novel The Little Broomstick. The starry English-language voice cast includes Ruby Barnhill (star of Spielberg’s The BFG) as Mary, Kate Winslet as Endor’s headmistress Madam Mumblechook, and Jim Broadbent as her colleague, Doctor Dee. Director Hiromasa Yonebayashi‘s Ghibli credits include Arietty and When Marnie Was There.
The screenings are part of the UK-wide Anim18 celebration of British animation.
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