News

NY Int'l Children's Film Fest to Show The Boy & the Beast, Hana & Alice

The New York International Children's Film Festival (NYICFF) will screen Mamoru Hosoda's The Boy and The Beast and Shunji Iwai's The Case of Hana & Alice films in February and March. The festival will screen The Boy and The Beast ahead of its formal March 4 theatrical opening in the United States.

Funimation licensed The Boy and The Beast (Bakemono no Ko) for the United States, and it describes the film:

When Kyuta, a young orphan living on the streets of Shibuya, stumbles into a fantastic world of beasts, he's taken in by Kumatetsu, a gruff, rough-around-the-edges warrior beast who's been searching for the perfect apprentice. Despite their constant bickering, Kyuta and Kumatetsu begin training together and slowly form a bond as surrogate father and son. But when a deep darkness threatens to throw the human and beast worlds into chaos, the strong bond between this unlikely pair will be put to the ultimate test—a final showdown that will only be won if the two can finally work together using all of their combined strength and courage.

The Fantasic Film Festival in Austin hosted the U.S. premiere of the film with English subtitles last September. Laemmle's Music Hall theater in Beverly Hills, California also screened the film for a week last month.

The film debuted at #1 in the Japanese box-office on July 11 and earned 667,035,100 yen (about US$5.4 million) in its first two days. It eventually surpassed the total box office earnings of Hosoda's previous film, Wolf Children. The film was the second-highest grossing domestic film in Japan in 2015.

The festival will screen the film with Japanese audio and English subtitles at the DGA Theatre on February 26 at 6:30 p.m.

The NYICFF has hosted premieres of Hosoda's The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Summer Wars, and Wolf Children anime films.

The Case of Hana & Alice (Hana to Alice Satsujin Jiken) is Shunji Iwai's animated prequel to his 2004 live-action coming-of-age film Hana & Alice. The film, Iwai's first feature-length animation, tells the story of how the two female high school leads in the Hana & Alice film met. Iwai conceived, wrote, and directed the original 2004 live-action Hana & Alice.

Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal screened the film's North American premiere last year. The LA EigaFest also screened the film last September.

NYICFF will screen the film at the Bow Tie Chelsea Cinemas on February 28 at 1:30 p.m., and on March 13 at 4:15 p.m. It will also screen the film at the IFC Center on March 20 at 12:30 p.m.

The film festival will take place from February 20 to March 20.

Thanks to Peter Tatara for the news tip