Spirited Away (2001 Japanese animated feature)
Introduced by Jim Keeshen
Libbey Bowl FREE Film
6:30 PM – Thursday Nov. 3

Spirited Away is a 2001 Japanese animated fantasy film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki, animated by Studio Ghibli. The film tells the story of Chihiro Ogino, a ten-year-old girl who, while moving to a new neighborhood, enters an abandoned amusement park and the world of Kami (spirits of Japanese Shinto folklore). After the witch Yubaba turns her parents into pigs, Chihiro takes a job working in Yubaba’s bathhouse to find a way to free herself and her parents and return to the human world.

Spirited Away, widely regarded by critics as one of the greatest films of the 21st century, won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature at the 75th Academy Awards, making it the first, and to date only, hand-drawn and non-English-language animated film to win the award. The Film Festival will screen the version dubbed into English.

The cast of the film uses the voices of Daveigh Chase, Jason Marsden, Suzanne Pleshette (in her final film role before her death in January 2008), Michael Chiklis, Lauren Holly, Susan Egan, David Ogden Stiers, and John Ratzenberger.

This continues the Festival’s tradition of thanking the Ojai community for its support by presenting a FREE opening night movie in Libbey Bowl.