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Mirai Anime Film Wins Florida Film Critics Award for Best Animated Film
posted on by Crystalyn Hodgkins
The Florida Film Critics Circle (FFCC) announced the winners for this year's Florida Film Critics Circle Awards on Friday, and Mamoru Hosoda's Mirai anime film won the Best Animated Film category. The other films nominated in the category were Incredibles 2, Isle of Dogs, and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse was the runner-up.
Mirai is also nominated in two categories for the 76th Annual Golden Globes, in two categories at the 46th Annual Annie Awards, and in the Best Animated Feature category for the the 24th Annual Critics' Choice Awards.
GKIDS and Fathom Events began screening the film in 700 U.S. theaters on November 29, and the film also screened on December 5 and December 8. GKIDS also held its own theatrical release in the United States on November 30. The film earned US$672,652 at the box office between November 29 and December 8.
The 100-minute film opened at #2 at the box office in Japan on July 20.
The film's story centers around a family living in a small house in an obscure corner of a certain city — in particular, the family's spoiled four-year-old boy KUN-chan. When KUN-chan gets a little sister named Mirai, he feels that his new sister stole his parents' love from him, and is overwhelmed by many experiences he undergoes for the first time in his life. In the midst of it all, he meets an older version of Mirai, who has come from the future.
Hosoda directed the film at his Studio Chizu, and is also credited as scriptwriter and for the original story. Hiroyuki Aoyama (animation director of The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Summer Wars, and The Boy and The Beast) and Ayako Hata (key animator on the same films) returned for this new film as animation directors. Yohei Takamatsu and Takashi Omori, who Hosoda had previously worked with on The Boy and The Beast, returned as art directors. Producer Yuichiro Saito returned from Hosoda's earlier films.
Sources: Florida Film Critics' Twitter account, GKIDS' Twitter account
