GKIDS Bringing 'Mary and The Witch's Flower' To North America

GKIDS Films are now the custodians of practically all of Studio Ghibli's back-catalogue in North America (leading to the upcoming Blu-ray re-issues). It makes sense then, that they should also be the company to bring the first feature from Studio Ponoc to the United States and Canada.

Studio Ponoc is a company founded and staffed by many former members of Ghibli. Their first feature film release is Mary And The Witch's Flower, a fantasy film based on a children's book by British author Mary Stewart, and directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi, director of Arriety and When Marnie Was There. Yoshiaki Nishimura, Ponoc's founder and former  producer at Studio Ghibli is also producer on the film. The script comes from The Tale Of The Princess Kaguya screenwriter Riko Sakaguchi.

Our first look at the film via the trailers revealed a film that owes a great debt to Ghibli's  output- but with Yonebayashi having cut his teeth at the legendary studio, that's only natural. It's notable that the new studio has their eyes on the international market from the off, having released English subtitled versions of all their trailers.

Released earlier this summer in Japan, GKIDS will bring the film to screens across North America this winter. International rights to the film were acquired by Altitude Films, who will release the film theatrically in the United Kingdom.

Watch this space for more information on the release when we have it.