Shrouded in a veil of secrecy up until its Japanese release this past July, Hayao Miyazaki’s first feature in a decade and potentially the 82-year-old director’s last work, The Boy and the Heron, will finally be seen by a wider audience soon. Ahead of its North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, U.S. premiere at the 61st New York Film Festival, European premiere at the San Sebastian International Film Festival, and UK premiere at the BFI London Film Festival, GKIDS has now released the first official footage with a teaser trailer.
The film has also been set for a limited U.S. release on November 22 before expanding nationwide and in Canada, including IMAX theaters, on December 8. As with previous Studio Ghibli titles, the film will be released in its original Japanese with English subtitles, as well as a new English language version.
While we’ll hold off on describing anything in detail for those wanting to either avoid or experience it themselves, we’ll just provide this official synopsis from GKIDS: “A young boy named Mahito, yearning for his mother, ventures into a world shared by the living and the dead. There, death comes to an end, and life finds a new beginning. A semi-autobiographical fantasy about life, death, and creation, in tribute to friendship, from the mind of Hayao Miyazaki.”
Watch below:
The Boy and the Heron opens on December 8 in theaters and IMAX from GKIDS.