A SEASON of Studio Ghibli films from Japan will be running at City Screen, York, through August.

Marketing manager Dave Taylor says: "This summer we’re sampling some of Hayao Miyazaki’s magic and Isao Takahata’s talents as we bring you a selection of the best work from the legendary Japanese animation studio, Studio Ghibli. City Screen will be playing some films dubbed into English and some in the original language with English subtitles to suit all tastes."

Miyazaki's Ponyo (U) will be shown at 12.40pm tomorrow afternoon in an English language version with its fairytale story of an effervescent young fish-girl being rescued and befriended by a five-year-old human boy called Sosuke after running away from the sea she calls home. Laced with the fantastical exuberance that has become synonymous with the Japanese studio, Ponyo harks back to the thematic timelessness and poetic charms of 1988's My Neighbour Totoro, shown at City Screen yesterday evening.

Miyazaki's "fantasy adventure film unlike any other", Spirited Away (PG), will have a 12 noon screening on Saturday in English and a 6pm show on Wednesday with English subtitles. It follows the path of Chihiro, a capricious ten-year-old girl who believes the entire world should submit to her every whim.

While en route to a new home, Chihiro and her parents stumble across a mysterious tunnel that leads them to a ghostly town. There, the parents greedily devour the buffet in an abandoned restaurant and unceremoniously turn into pigs as Chihiro looks on. They have unwittingly strayed into the Land of the Spirits, a world inhabited by ancient gods and magical beings who holiday at a giant bathhouse run by the demonic sorceress Yubaba.

Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away

Monday's Ghibli film will be Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoke [PG] with subtitles at 6pm. When Prince Ashitaka slays a raging boar god, he is wounded and becomes infected with the sickness that had sent the beast berserk, a malady stemming from humankind’s disharmony with nature. Set at the time of Japan’s transition from the Middle Ages to the modern era, Princess Mononoke is a morally complex tale that blends a fantasy quest with social comment for our times.

In Miyazaki's Kiki's Delivery (U), on August 17 in English, a young witch, on her mandatory year of independent life, finds fitting into a new community difficult while she supports herself by running an air courier service.

The season concludes on August 23 at 6.30pm with the subtitled Grave Of The Fireflies [12A], Ghibli co-founder Isao Takahata's anime about Seita and his little sister Setsuko losing their mother and their home in the firebombing of Kobe in 1945 during the Second World War. Unable to contact their father on the frontline, they flee to the country, left alone to fend for themselves.

Tickets are on sale on City Screen's new phone number, 0871 902 5747, in person at the Coney Street Picturehouse or at picturehouses.com.