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GKIDS ‘latest acquisition, BELLE, from renowned filmmaker Mamoru Hosoda and his company Studio Chizu, is an official selection of the Cannes Film Festival and will celebrate its world premiere in the Cannes Premiere section on Thursday 15th July. This is Hosoda’s second invitation to Cannes. His first, Mirai, made his Director’s Fortnight debut in 2018 before earning an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Film. GKIDS will be releasing BELLE in its original Japanese version as well as a new English dubbed version in North America this winter, and will qualify the film for the 2021 awards ceremony.
“Having selected my previous film ‘Mirai’ for Directors’ Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival, I am honored that ‘Belle’ has been selected for the premieres section of the official selection. It is extremely rare for an animated film to be selected for the Festival de Cannes and I think this selection is a sign to the audience of both the importance of this new film and the growing recognition of animated films in the future, ”said Hosoda .
Hosoda’s highly anticipated new animated film, BELLE, is an original story written and directed by the acclaimed director who added to his previous films Mirai, The Boy and the Beast, Wolf Children, Summer Wars, The Girl Who Leaped Through Time and others belong. Hosoda is assisted by Yuichiro Saito, a longtime production partner and co-founder of Studio Chizu, as the producer of the title.
At BELLE, the Japanese creative team worked with a range of international talents. Character designer Jin Kim, the artist behind several iconic Disney features such as Moana, Tangled and Frozen, created the title character Belle. Oscar® nominees Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart (Wolfwalkers, Song of the Sea, The Secret of Kells) from Cartoon Saloon also join the team and contribute works of art for the various virtual fantasy worlds within the film. Hosoda continues his film collaborations with architects and is supported by the aspiring British architect and designer Eric Wong, who designed the virtual world of “U”. The team is rounded off by the composer Ludvig Forssell, who is best known for his collaboration with the video game author Hideo Kojima (Death Stranding, Metal Gear Solid V).
BELLE is due to appear in Japanese cinemas on July 16.
SUMMARY
From acclaimed Oscar® nominee director Mamoru Hosoda and Studio Chizu, creators of Mirai, Wolf Children, Summer Wars and more, comes a fantastic, yet beautiful and contemporary themed story about a girl’s development in the age of social media.
Suzu is a 17-year-old high school student who lives with her father in a rural village. For years she was only a shadow of herself. One day she enters “U”, a virtual world with 5 billion members on the Internet. There she is no longer Suzu, but Belle, a world-famous singer. Soon she meets a mysterious being. Together they embark on a journey full of adventure, challenges and love in order to become what they really are.