Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind
After several nuanced portrait films of Quebec cultural figures, Simon Beaulieu, also a screenwriter, follows a trajectory that brings his work closer to the essay film. In addition to screening his films, the carte blanche we offer him showcases the diversity of his influences and the eclecticism of his tastes.
A thousand years after the "Seven Days of Fire", the appalling world war that put an end to industrial society, humanity is trying to survive as hostile vegetation gains ground on the planet. The daily life of a farming village in the Valley of the Wind is turned upside down the day a ship from the Tolmec Empire sinks in its waters. Abducted by the enemy, Nausicaä, the king's daughter, goes from discovery to discovery...
Hayao Miyazaki
Hayao Miyazaki is a Japanese animator, filmmaker, and manga artist. A co-founder of Studio Ghibli with Isao Takahata, he has attained international acclaim as a masterful storyteller and creator of Japanese animated feature films, and is widely regarded as one of the most accomplished filmmakers in the history of animation. He directed numerous films with Ghibli, including Castle in the Sky (1986), My Neighbor Totoro (1988), Kiki's Delivery Service (1989), and Princess Mononoke (1997). His 2001 film Spirited Away became the highest-grossing film in Japanese history, won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, and is frequently ranked among the greatest films of the 21st century. His later films, Howl's Moving Castle (2004), Ponyo (2008), and The Wind Rises (2013), also enjoyed critical and commercial success. Following his retirement from feature film, he returned to write and direct The Boy and the Heron (2023), for which he won his second Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. Miyazaki's works are characterized by the recurrence of themes such as humanity's relationship with nature and technology, the wholesomeness of natural and traditional patterns of living, the importance of art and craftsmanship, and the difficulty of maintaining a pacifist ethic in a violent world. His protagonists are often strong young women, and several of his films present morally ambiguous antagonists with redeeming qualities.
