The Boy and the Heron: Hayao Miyazaki’s Final Movie Will Open TIFF 2023

July 27, 2023

Hayao Miyazaki’s final movie, The Boy and the Heron, will open the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival.

GKIDS is going to screen this movie on September 7, 2023, becoming the first movie of this distributor to open the festival. They will distribute the movie in North American theaters later in 2023. This Studio Ghibli animated movie is Miyazaki’s first film in ten years since The Wind Rises. Miyazaki has directed classics in the genre, such as My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away, and Howl’s Moving Castle.

“Through encounters with his friends and uncle, follows a teenage boy’s psychological development,” reads the synopsis. “He enters a magical world with a talking grey heron after finding an abandoned tower in his new town.”

Jonathan Sim is a film critic and filmmaker born and raised in New York City. He is a member of the Critics Choice Association and Hollywood Creative Alliance, and has been featured in The Hollywood Reporter, Newsweek, and Radio Times.

He has met/interviewed some of the leading figures in Hollywood, including Christopher Nolan, Zendaya, Liam Neeson, and Denis Villeneueve. He also works as a screenwriter, director, and producer on independent short films.