Studio Ghibli’s The Boy and the Heron Becomes First Anime to Win a BAFTA • Anime UK News

Hayao Miyazaki’s The Boy and the Heron has made history by becoming the first Japanese anime film to be awarded Best Animated Film at the BAFTAs (British Academy of Film and Television Awards), one of the world’s most prestigious film awards bodies. The occasion also marked the first time that an anime film had been nominated for the award, which was established back in 2006.

The awards ceremony saw Studio Ghibli fending off stiff competition from other critically acclaimed animated films – Sony Pictures Animation’s Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Disney’s Elemental, and British darling Aardman’s Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget. The previous Spider-Verse film, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, won the award back in 2018.

Having already won the Golden Globe for Best Animated Feature Film back in January, all eyes will now be on 96th Academy Awards on 10th March, where the film will be widely viewed as the front-runner. However, it may still face opposition from Spider-Verse, which took home the Annie Award earlier this week. Studio Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki have previously received numerous nominations for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, but have only once once: in 2003, for Spirited Away.

The latest film from Studio Ghibli, The Boy and the Heron was helmed by legendary director Hayao Miyazaki after he came out of yet another attempt at retirement back in 2017, with the film seeing an unusually long production time leading to its release in Japan in July 2023. The film was released in cinemas across the United Kingdom by Elysian Film Group on 26 December 2023.

Source: Discussing Film (via X)