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Mamoru Hosoda's Belle Film Wins Special Jury Prize at L.A.'s Animation Is Film Fest
posted on by Alex Mateo
Mamoru Hosoda and Studio Chizu's new BELLE (Ryū to Sobakasu no Hime, literally "The Dragon and the Freckled Princess") anime film won the Special Jury Prize at GKIDS, Annecy, and Variety magazine's Animation Is Film festival.
The festival hosted the film's West Coast premiere along with the world premiere of the English dub for Poupelle of Chimney Town on October 23. Hosoda held an in-person Q&A session with the screening of BELLE. The Deer King (U.S. premiere), Fortune Favors Lady Nikuko (Los Angeles premiere), and My Hero Academia THE MOVIE: World Heroes' Mission (North American premiere) also screened on October 24.
The festival took place at the TCL Chinese 6 Theatres in Los Angeles from October 22 to 24.
GKIDS will begin screening the film in English and in Japanese with English subtitles in the U.S. on January 14.
BELLE opened in Japan on July 16. The film has IMAX screenings in 38 theaters throughout Japan. This makes BELLE the first of Hosoda's films to have IMAX screenings.
The film has earned a cumulative total of 6,397,159,950 yen (about US$56.44 million) as of October 10. The film is Hosoda's highest-grossing film. MX4D screenings for the film opened on October 22.
France's Cannes Film Festival first screened the film in the festival's Cannes Premiere section on July 15. It marked the first Official Selection at the festival for Hosoda. (The director's previous Mirai film screened at the Directors' Fortnight, an independent section held in parallel to the festival, in 2018.) The film had its North American premiere at New York Film Festival on September 25.
Hosoda (The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Summer Wars, The Boy and The Beast, Mirai) directed and scripted the film, and is also credited for the original work. The film marks Studio Chizu's 10th anniversary. Taisei Iwasaki (Blood Blockade Battlefront, Dragon Pilot: Hisone and Masotan, The Naked Director) is the film's music director and composer.
Source: Cartoon Brew (Alex Dudok de Wit)
