Castle in the Sky in 35mm

Sheeta is being pursued by an army, sky pirates, and government agents, all of whom want her mysterious blue pendant, in Studio Ghibli’s debut feature. The film bears some of Hayao Miyazaki’s signature motifs: a girl awakening to her powers; an aesthetic that combines the industrial with the organic; and, of course, high-flying derring-do. Such is the Ghibli affection for this film that one of its iconic robot sentinels stands guard at the Ghibli Museum, Mitaka, in Tokyo. A bravura piece of hand-drawn animation including more than 300 different shades of color spanning 69,262 cel drawings, Castle in the Sky is one of Miyazaki’s most visually rich films.

Academy Museum film programming generously funded by the Richard Roth Foundation.

1986 | 124 min. | Japan | Color | Japanese with English subtitles | Rated PG | 35mm

DIRECTED/WRITTEN BY: Hayao Miyazaki 

WITH: Mayumi Tanaka, Keiko Yokozawa, Kotoe Hatsui, Minori Terada 

New subtitled print courtesy of the Academy Film Archive, with special thanks to Studio Ghibli.