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Goro Miyazaki, Hideaki Anno's Ghibli Projects Outlined

Studio Ghibli producer Toshio Suzuki revealed on a television special that Goro Miyazaki (pictured right), the director of Tales from Earthsea and From Up On Poppy Hill, is planning a samurai period work that combines fact and fiction. On the "Iwai Shunji x Suzuki Toshio Tokubetsu Taidan" special that first ran on the Nihon Eiga Senmon Channel on January 5, Suzuki told filmmaker Shunji Iwai that Goro Miyazaki's project is set in the northeastern Tohoku region of Japan during the Middle Ages.

Junichi Nishioka, the former head of Studio Ghibli's public relations department and writer of the studio's production diary (Itsumo no Ghibli Nikki), wrote in his new "Nishi Diary" on September 9 about another new work. In his new diary on the Ghibli Museum's website, Nishioka noted that "Director A" and "Director H" attended a meeting about an exhibition that "Director A" is supervising for the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo this summer. A major highlight of the exhibition will be a new film work specifically made for the event. Nishioka did not specify the length of the work or whether it is live-action or animated.

Studio Ghibli's exhibitor page at the Tokyo International Anime Fair (TAF) website then revealed earlier this month that Evangelion director Hideaki Anno (pictured above left) is curating an exhibition at the museum with Ghibli. According to the page, "Director Hideaki Anno's Japanese Special Effects Museum" will cover the craftsmanship of the Showa (1926-1989) and Heisei (1989-current) eras through the miniature models used for special effects. (The exhibitor page has since removed any mention of the exhibition or Anno.)

In a separate development, director and studio co-founder Hayao Miyazaki (Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, Spirited Away, Ponyo) said in an interview in the January issue of Studio Ghibli's Neppū periodical that he plans to complete his current work a year and a half from now. However, he cautioned that he does not know what may happen during that timeframe — not just natural disasters such as earthquakes, but also changes in the state of politics and the world in general.

Goro Miyazaki talked about Studio Ghibli's next work in November: ""I think it'll be about two years from now. Actually, my dad [Hayao Miyazaki] has begun making it now. It's amazing." Suzuki added later that month that Hayao Miyazaki's next work "not the sort of work that everyone in the audience can relax and watch" since Miyazaki desired "to create something realistic."

Ghibli director and co-founder Isao Takahata (Grave of the Fireflies, Only Yesterday, My Neighbors the Yamadas) confirmed in September that he also has a new work that may be about two more years from being close to completion.

The January issue of Neppū features (from left to right) Hayao Miyazaki, Suzuki, and Takahata on its cover. The word "neppū" means "hot wind" in Japanese — essentially the same meaning that the word "ghibli" has in Italian.

[Via Nausicaa.net, tsk06, Murasaki no Buta]