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GKIDS Adds More U.S. Mirai Film Screenings on February 18

GKIDS announced on Friday that it is bringing back screenings of Mamoru Hosoda's Mirai anime film in select North American theaters beginning on February 18. The anime's official English website has a regularly updated list of screenings.

The film was recently nominated for the Animated Feature Film category of the 91st Academy Awards, which will be held on February 24, 2019. The film also recently won the Best Animated Independent Feature category for the 46th Annual Annie 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's North American screenings earned US$672,652.

The 100-minute film opened at #2 at the box office in Japan last July.

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.

Source: GKIDS email correspondence, GKIDS' Twitter account, Mirai Film's U.S. website