Legendary animator Hayao Miyazaki announced his retirement in 2013, following his final film, The Wind Rises. It was his sixth “retirement” and, like his previous five, hasn’t stuck – the auteur director has not only announced a new project, but his first to be animated entirely in CG.
Kemushi no Boro (“Boro the Caterpillar”) isn’t set to follow Miyazaki’s earlier works to cinemas though. It will only be around ten minutes long, and will be screened exclusively at the Studio Ghibli Museum in Mitaka, Tokyo.
Miyazaki describes the short as “a story of a tiny, hairy caterpillar, so tiny that it may be easily squished between your fingers.” It’s a tale he’s been planning for almost two decades – the director first mentioned plans for the story prior to 1997’s similarly nature-focused Princess Mononoke.
It’s not the first time Miyazaki has used CG as a tool – the technology is most notably used in his Oscar-winning Spirited Away – but the short will be the first time he has produced an entire film in the form. Despite the brevity of the piece, Miyazaki’s long-time collaborater and Studio Ghibli producer Toshio Suzuki says it will take around three years to create.
Boro will join a handful of animated shorts that Ghibli produces exclusively for visitors to its museum. Nine shorts have been created to date, including Mei and the Kittenbus, a semi-sequel to My Neighbour Totoro, and Monmon the Water Spider, which follows the daily trials of the eponymous arachnid, and may be closest in tone to Boro. Sadly, none of the museum shorts have been released on Blu-ray or DVD, even in Japan. To actually see what may be Miyazaki’s last work, you’ll need to actually take a trip to Mitaka in 2018.
Studio Ghibli’s next feature film is Hiromasa Yonebayashi’s When Marnie Was There, expected for UK release later in 2015.
[Source]
