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Ghibli Founder Takahata to Base Next Film on Lullaby
posted on by Egan Loo
The third-party GhibliWorld.com information website reports that Studio Ghibli producer Toshio Suzuki said in this weekend's Ghibli Asemamire radio show that studio co-founder Isao Takahata will base his next film on a Japanese lullaby. Takahata directed Grave of the Fireflies, Only Yesterday, Pom Poko, and My Neighbors the Yamadas. The website also explains which of the two kinds of Japanese lullabies that Suzuki is describing. Suzuki first revealed that Takahata and Goro Miyazaki, the son of Ghibli's other co-founder Hayao Miyazaki, were developing new works last month during a press conference.
GhibliWorld.com also translated an excerpt of an interview with Suzuki from the March issue of rockin'on's Cut magazine. In the interview, Suzuki explains that the elder Miyazaki was originally planning to base his next feature film on a popular children's picture book. Eventually, Ghibli developed one of the stories in Rieko Nakagawa's Iya Iya En book, Kujiratori (The Whale Hunt), as an animated short for the Ghibli Museum. For his next feature, Miyazaki would branch out to create his own story, Gake no Ue no Ponyo, which is tentatively pegged for a July release. Miyazaki's string of critically acclaimed films includes Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, the Oscar-winning Spirited Away, and most recently, Howl's Moving Castle.
