Previously unreleased feature will be in theaters starting December 28th at IFC Center in NY and one night only at the Egyptian Theatre in LA.
NEW YORK -- Independent animation distributor GKIDS will release Studio Ghibli’s Ocean Waves, which has been unreleased in the U.S. until now. The film will play starting on December 28th at IFC Center in New York, and one night only in Los Angeles at the Egyptian Theatre, in a new 4K restoration. The film will then be released on home video formats in Spring 2017.
Ocean Waves is directed by Tomomi Mochizuki and written by Kaori Nakamura, which was adapted from a novel of the same name by Saeko Himuro. The film was originally made in 1993 for Japanese television.
Rarely seen outside of Japan, Ocean Waves is a subtle, poignant and wonderfully detailed story of adolescence and teenage isolation. Taku and his best friend Yutaka are headed back to school for what looks like another uneventful year. But they soon find their friendship tested by the arrival of Rikako, a beautiful new transfer student from Tokyo whose attitude vacillates wildly from flirty and flippant to melancholic. When Taku joins Rikako on a trip to Tokyo, the school erupts with rumors, and the three friends are forced to come to terms with their changing relationships.
Ocean Waves was the first Studio Ghibli film directed by someone other than studio founders Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata, as director Tomomi Mochizuki led a talented staff of younger employees in an adaptation of Saeko Himuro’s best-selling novel. Full of shots bathed in a palette of pleasingly soft pastel colors and rich in the unexpected visual details typical of Studio Ghibli’s most revered works, Ocean Waves is an accomplished teenage drama and a true discovery.
Source: GKIDS
Formerly Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network, Jennifer Wolfe has worked in the Media & Entertainment industry as a writer and PR professional since 2003.
