If The Boy and the Heron is the final film from Hayao Miyazaki, the visionary filmmaker who has gifted the world such classics as My Neighbour Totoro, Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away, it will take its place amongst the finest of his films. In common with Spirited Away, it is a tale of an impressionable child on an odyssey in a mysterious and magical realm. The story begins during the Second World War when Mahito’s mother dies in a horrific hospital fire. After the war he moves to the countryside with his father. There, he is subjected to the persistent attentions of a curious grey heron, who guides him to investigate an abandoned tower house, which one day he bravely enters. Miyazaki fills every frame with a phantasmagoria of colour and movement as familiar flora and fauna are imbued with wonder.

All screenings of The Boy and the Heron will be subtitled.

Notes by David O’Mahony