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GKids to Release I.G's A Letter to Momo in U.S. Theaters
posted on by Egan Loo
The distribution company GKIDS plans to release Hiroyuki Okiura and Production I.G's A Letter to Momo anime film in theaters throughout the United States at the end of this year. The announcement was made during the film's opening in Japanese theaters on Saturday.
A Letter to Momo follows a girl named Momo who struggles with her father's sudden passing and her move to the countryside. Momo finds an otherworldly surprise at her new home. okiura spent seven years planning, writing, storyboarding, and directing the film; it is his first return to the proverbial director's chair since Jin-Roh in 2000.
The film held its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September, and it won the Platinum Grand Prize at the Future Film Festival in Italy earlier this spring. It won the grand prize at the New York International Children's Film Festival (NYICFF), which GKIDS runs, last month. Production I.G aims to have the film nominated in the feature film category of the Academy Awards in the United States. The film will open in about 300 theaters in South Korea this summer, and it will also open in Taiwan and Hong Kong this year.
GKIDS collaborated with Funimation to release Summer Wars in American theaters in 2010 and 2011, after releasing the Oscar-nominated European animated film The Secret of Kells in 2009. More recently, GKIDS signed a deal with Studio Ghibli to distribute 13 of the studio's anime films — including Princess Mononoke, My Neighbor Totoro, Laputa: Castle in the Sky, and Spirited Away — in North America last year.
Source: animeanime.jp
Image © 2012 Momo e no Tegami Production Committee
Update: Academy Awards corrected.
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