The Cannes Film Festival 2024 paid homage to a cinema legend, awarding the Palme d’Or for lifetime achievement to a group for the first time: Studio Ghibli. In addition to the greats of Hollywood, the Japanese studio embodied by two superb storytellers, Hayao Miyazaki And Isao Takahataand a series of cult characters, has unleashed a wave of innovation in animated cinema over the last four decades.
A statement from Toshio Suzukico-founder of Studio Ghibli:
I am truly honored and happy that the studio is awarded the honorary Palme d’Or. I would like to thank the Cannes Film Festival from the bottom of my heart. Forty years ago, Hayao Miyazaki, Isao Takahata, and I founded Studio Ghibli with the desire to bring high-end, high-quality animation to children and adults of all ages. Today our films are watched by people all over the world and many visitors come to the Ghibli Museum, Mitaka and Ghibli Park to experience the world of our films first hand. We’ve come a long way for Studio Ghibli to become such a large organization. Although Miyazaki and I have aged considerably, I am sure that Studio Ghibli will continue to face new challenges, guided by the staff who will carry forward the spirit of the company. It would be a great pleasure if you looked forward to what comes next.
Cannes 2024 – The Studio Ghibli red carpet
With this honorary Palme d’Or at Cannes 2024, Studio Ghibli joins those who have inspired cinematography, which the Cannes Film Festival celebrates every year as stated by Iris Knobloch, president of the Cannes Film Festival, and Thierry Frémaux, general delegate:
For the first time in our history, it is not a person but an institution that we have chosen to celebrate. Like all icons of the Seventh Art, these characters populate our imagination with prolific and colorful universes and sensitive and engaging narratives. With Ghibli, Japanese animation presents itself as one of the great adventures of cinephilia, between tradition and modernity.
Studio Ghibli – A forty-year legend
It all started 40 years ago. The success of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind by Hayao Miyazaki in 1984 allowed him to found Studio Ghibli with Isao Takahata in 1985. They achieved what seemed like an impossible feat: independently producing pure masterpieces and conquering the mass market. Producer Toshio Suzuki, a key member of the studio from the beginning and soon assumed a full-time role, ran the studio with formidable efficiency, establishing a perfect complementarity between the projects of Miyazaki and Takahata, both producers and directors.
In 1988, with the simultaneous release of The Tomb of the Fireflies And My Neighbor Totoro, these exceptional creative artists achieved double success. In 1992, Studio Ghibli was able to start financing their feature films with Porco Rosso. In the early years only the two founders directed their own films, but gradually young authors came forward. Among them Goro Miyazaki and Hiromasa Yonebayashi stood out and were among the first to join the Studio.
In four decades and over twenty feature films, Studio Ghibli has conquered its audience with works steeped in poetry and humanistic and environmental commitment. With Porco Rosso, Pom Poko, Princess Mononoke, My neighbors Yamada, The wind picks up And The Story of the Shining Princess, Studio Ghibli has crafted stories that are as personal as they are universal. They have won prestigious awards, including the Golden Bear and the Oscar for Best Animated Feature for Spirited Away, and more recently another Oscar for The Boy and the Heron.
In Europe as in the United States, these films are among the most acclaimed works of animators, between art for art’s sake and the commercial challenges of the industry. They are true role models, as much for the quality of their writing, direction and animation as for their commitment to broad aesthetic aspirations. In 2001, the Mitaka Ghibli Museum opened on the outskirts of Tokyo. The venue was intended to showcase the work of the animators and the short films created for the museum, thus affirming the cultural importance of the Studio. In 2022, Ghibli Park was opened in Aichi Prefecture, a hybrid park that expresses the world of Studio Ghibli. Goro Miyazaki, the first director of the Ghibli Museum, was named Director of Creative Development to oversee the park’s construction.
During the Palme d’Or award ceremony at Studio Ghibli, four short films written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki were screened. An unprecedented event: three of the four short films coming directly from the Ghibli Museum in Mitaka had never been screened outside Japan.
