California festival screens film in January before wider U.S. screening in February

The Palm Springs International Film Festival in California announced on Friday that it will screen Hayao Miyazaki's 11th and final film The Wind Rises during the January 3-13 event. The festival is screening the film in its "Modern Masters" category, which features 10 films "from some of the true auteurs of contemporary cinema."

The Wind Rises centers on Jirō Horikoshi (played by Evangelion director Hideaki Anno), the designer of Japan's famed Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighter plane of World War II. Miyazaki incorporated story elements inspired by Tatsuo Hori, the author of an earlier novel titled Kaze Tachinu.

Disney will release the film in North America, and Studio Ghibli International produced the English-language dub with producer Frank Marshall ( From Up on Poppy Hill, The Secret World of Arrietty, Ponyo ). The film played in New York and Los Angeles in November, and it will open across the United States in February.

The Wind Rises has been nominated for a Golden Globe award, and has also been submitted for an Oscar nomination. The film was nominated for the Asia Pacific Screen Awards but did not win, and has been nominated for an Annie Award and a Satellite Award. The Wind Rises has also recently won the Best Animated Film Award from the New York Film Critics Circle, The National Board of Review, The Boston Society of Film Critics, and the San Diego Film Critics Society, and was the runner-up in The Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards' Best Animation category.

Also screening in the Modern Masters category is Hirokazu Kore-eda's Like Father, Like Son film. Additionally, Yūya Ishii's The Great Passage is screening in the Awards Buzz category.

Thanks to Daniel Zelter for the news tip.

Source: Deadline