The famed director of My Neighbor Totoro and numerous other classic anime is retiring. The recently released Kaze Tachinu will be the 72 year-old Miyazaki’s final feature film.
According to Japan’s Cinema Today, Studio Ghibli exec Kouji Hoshino announced the news this Sunday at the Venice Film Festival, where Kaze Tachinu is being shown.
“Please understand that on that today, I won’t be able to answer any questions about the retirement,” Hoshino explained to the international press at the Venice Film Festival. “He sincerely wants to say good-bye to everyone.”
Yomiuri reports that Miyazaki will talk this Friday in Tokyo about his retirement and what it means.
宮崎駿監督、『風立ちぬ』で引退 ジブリ社長がベネチアで発表【第70回ベネチア国際映画祭】 [Cinema Today]
Photo: DOMENICO STINELLIS | AP
Comments
9 responses to “Hayao Miyazaki Is Retiring”
He ‘retired’ after Princess Mononoke. Then he came back to do Spirited Away. After getting the Oscar for that he said he was retiring, but then the original director Ghibli had contracted for Howl’s Moving Castle, Mamoru Hosoda (The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Summer Wars etc.), decided to leave the project early on and they had to scramble to find a new director.
After Howl’s Moving Castle he ‘retired’ again, only to come back and do Ponyo. He basically suggested he was done after Ponyo too, and then he comes along and does a new film again.
Guy really sucks at retiring.
This time though it sounds like he’s wanting to step back from directing and maybe do more writing or collaboration work like he did with his son on Poppy Hill. They’ve already confirmed he’s writing a sequel to Porco Rosso, which will be directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi (Arrietty).
Meanwhile it’s almost guaranteed that the upcoming Princess Kaguya will be Isao Takahata’s last film. He’ll be 78 by the time it screens and unlike Miyazaki, his output has significantly dropped over the last decade or so.
This was informative., and I appreciated it. Upvote!
Yep defs deserving of an upvote. Ta!!
Thanks for that. I was wondering what was going to happen to the Porco sequel.
Yeah thought he’d done it before. Had no idea how many times though lol
So he’s like the John Farnham of Japan then? 🙂
Seriously though, if this is his real retirement, that’s a shame – some of the best Anime came from him.
Sounds like he has retired more times than Terry Funk
That’s a shame about Takahata, I quite like his films. I do get the impression this is Miyazaki’s last film as director, but you’re right that he’s tried to retire a number of times before and kept coming back.
Is there any word on an Australian release for this?
What a great man thank you for making my life better always feel really happy after watching a studio ghibli movie