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Totto-Chan: The Little Girl at the Window Film Wins Animated Feature Grand Prize at NY Int'l Children's Film Festival
posted on by Joanna Cayanan
The NYICFF was held from February 28 to March 16, and festival award winners are determined by audience votes. Grand Prize winners of the festival are determined by audiences of all ages, with emphasis given to the votes of audiences under the age of 18.
The film recently won the Best Animated Feature Jury and Audience Awards at the Anima 2025 film festival in Belgium earlier this month.
The film opened in Japan in December 2023.
Tetsuko Kuroyanagi's memoir tells her story of going to school at Tomoe Gakuen, after not fitting at her original elementary school. She meets unique students and learns new things at school, even as Japan descends into war. Kuroyanagi published the book in Japan in 1981, where it became a bestseller over the next year. It became required reading for Japanese elementary school students in the 1980s, and was also translated in English and many other languages worldwide.
Seven-year-old Liliana Ohno stars in the film as protagonist Totto-chan.
Shinnosuke Yakuwa (Eiga Doraemon: Shin Nobita no Daimakyō - Peko to 5-nin no Tankentai, Doraemon the Movie: Nobita and the Birth of Japan 2016, Doraemon the Movie: Nobita's Chronicle of the Moon Exploration) directed the film at Shinei Animation and he also penned the script alongside Yōsuke Suzuki (Pazudora). Shizue Kaneko (Monster Strike The Movie, Adachi and Shimamura, How NOT to Summon a Demon Lord) designed the characters.
Shinei Animation won the Hiroshi Ōkawa Award for its work on the film at the third Niigata International Animation Film Festival on February 7. The movie won the Paul Grimault Award for feature films at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival in 2024.
Source: Press release
