It was announced, following the Venice Film Festival premiere of The Wind Rises (Kaze Tachinu), that this would be Hayao Miyazaki’s final film. Studio Ghibli President Koji Hoshino told a group of gathered press the studio founder and world-renowned anime filmmaker will “retire from the production of feature-length films,” and, “Miyazaki has decided that Kaze Tachinu will be his last film, and he will now retire,” said Hoshino. Hoshino didn’t go into any other details, saying only that Miyazaki would hold a briefing in Tokyo this coming week as the director himself was not at the film festival.
Following eleven features and multiple awards (including a 2002 Academy Award for Spirited Away) the 72 year old director will be stepping away from the spotlight. Truly a sad day as Miyazaki can truly be said to have influenced the art of film animation nearly to the same extent as Walt Disney. Although there’s always hope Miyazaki could work on shorter projects as opposed to feature length films and it should be noted the director has twice before stepped away into retirement only to return but, unfortunately, I think this time “Miya-san” is making it official.
The Wind Rises opened in Japanese theaters in July but we still don’t have word on a U.S. release date.
