Director: Hayao Miyazaki

Japan, 2008
35 mm / Colour / 100’
Japanese; English & Turkish s.t.

Hayao Miyazaki has returned to the directing seat with another Ghibli production following his son’s Tales from the Earthsea. Miyazaki had last directed Howl’s Moving Castle in 2004. Ponyo is the director’s eighth film, and follows a goldfish named Ponyo, who wears a red dress and desperately wants to be a human. In pursuing her goal, she befriends a five-year-old human boy, Sosuke, but in the process, upsets the earth’s ecological balance. The film was released in Japan in July where it has already broken box-office records. Ponyo on the Cliff is inspired by Andersen’s Little Mermaid as well as by the traditional Japanese folktale Urashima Taro. Far more upbeat than Miyazaki’s earlier films, Ponyo will mesmerise with its bright pastel colours, non-CGI animation and unequalled innocence.