The newest film from Studio Ghibli !

Kokurikozaka kara (コクリコ坂から, lit. From Corn Poppy Hill) is a Japanese manga series by Tetsurō Sayama and Chizuru Takahashi which was serialized by Kodansha from January to August 1980 in the shōjo manga magazine Nakayoshi.The manga was collected in two volumes published under the KC Nakayoshi imprint.

The manga was announced to be the source material for an upcoming 2011 Studio Ghibli film to be directed by Gorō Miyazaki, with a script co-written by the director's father, Hayao, and Keiko Niwa, co-author of the scripts for The Borrower Arrietty (2010) and Tales from Earthsea (2006).

Kokuriko is the Japanese spelling of "coquelico" (French) for corn poppy. 

From Kokuriko Hill is Studio Ghibli's newest film production scheduled for summer 2011. The release date seems quite soon to me as their last released film was just a year ago. The Borrower Arrietty showed impressing and persuading results and so far has a score of 8.1 points on imdb. It hasn't yet been premiered in UK nor US; US premiere has been postponed for February 2012. 

The new film will be named Kokurikozaka kara (From Kokuriko Hill) and based on a namesake manga. Again the script will be written by Hayao Miyazaki, drected by his son Gorō (who previously worked on Tales from Earthsea) and produced by Toshio Suzuki. The main theme song is said to be performed by Aoi Teshima, the same singer who sang Teru's song for "Tales from Earthsea"

Kokuriko-Zaka Kara Trailer

By the summary written on various other sites it appears to me to be one of the kind "Whisper of the heart", "Ocean Waves" "Kiki's delivery service" are.
A story set in Shōwa period follows the life of a growing up girl, whose father goes missing and mother is rarely home. Left on her own she has to face all the ordeals the everyday exposes her to. She has to grab the happiness when offered, but face the sadness with a smile and courage as well. Taking care of the shop and her younger sublings, participating in school activities and thus learning to live and slowly or rather quickly, in her case, grow up. However, I might be wrong with these presumptions of mine, let's wait and see. 
More on this as it progresses.

The Borrower Arrietty

The Borrower Arrietty (借りぐらしのアリエッティ, Karigurashi no Arrietty) is a 2010 Japanese anime film to be produced by Japanese animation house Studio Ghibli, based on the fantasy novel The Borrowers by Mary Norton.

The upcoming film is slated for a July 17, 2010 release in Japan and will mark the directorial debut of Studio Ghibli animator Hiromasa Yonebayashi, who will be the youngest person to direct a film for Ghibli. Ghibli founder Hayao Miyazaki will be supervising the production as a developing planner.

The story will take place in 2010 in Koganei, western Tokyo and like the novel will revolve around a group of creatures that live under the floorboards.

Arrietty Trailer

The singer of the song for Arrietty

Musicienne, chanteuse et compositrice, Cécile est née à la pointe du Finistère, où elle découvre adolescente la harpe celtique. Elle entretient depuis ces débuts ce lien avec la région bretonne, qui la façonne et la nourrit.

Inspirée par les musiques traditionnelles celtiques de Bretagne et d'ailleurs, elle découvre au fil du temps la composition musicale, essentiellement centrée sur la harpe et le chant.
Cécile cultive toujours un grand intérêt pour les contes anciens, les mélodies ancestrales et les ambiances teintées de féérie, éléments de base de son univers musical.

Seule, s'accompagnant de sa harpe, elle commence  à chanter dans les rues et les pubs, avant de rencontrer ses complices musiciens qui l'accompagnent sur scène et sur disque depuis de nombreuses années, créant une atmosphère folk, acoustique et finalement moderne.

En produisant ses premiers disques, elle rencontre un public plus large et affine la production des arrangements. De nombreux concerts et festivals à l'étranger la feront voyager en Europe, et de l'Asie aux USA.

En 2008 sort "SongBook vol. 2", un album plus abouti que les précédents, qui lui vaudra l'attention du public et celle plus particulière du producteur en chef des fameux studio d'animation japonais Ghibli. Il s'en suivra en 2010 l'écriture de la bande originale du film "Arrietty, le petit monde des chapardeurs", succès populaire au Japon, qui continue de se répandre à d'autres pays, au gré des sorties du film en salles. Cet enregistrement lui vaudra de recevoir en 2011 le prix de "Bande Originale de l'année" et un disque d'or au Japon.

Mai 2011 voit paraître "Songbook vol. 3  Renaissance", un album qui sonne comme un retour aux sources, plus acoustique, dans lequel Cécile continue d'explorer son univers musical pop-folk, toujours inspiré par l'imaginaire celtique et parfois teinté d'Orient.

A titre personnel, Cécile soutient activement l'association Info Birmanie, qui lutte pour que personne n'oublie le sort actuel du peuple Birman.

Joe Hisaishi

Why we talk about Joe Hisaishi, and who is he? Follow me. The answer begins now.

Joe Hisaishi was born in Nakano, Nagano, Japan as Mamoru Fujisawa (藤澤 守 Fujisawa Mamoru). When he started to take violin lessons at age five, Hisaishi discovered his passion for music. Realizing his love, he attended the Kunitachi College of Music in 1969 to major in music composition. Hisaishi collaborated with minimalist artists as a typesetter, furthering his experience in the musical world.

He enjoyed his first success of the business in 1974 when he composed music for a small animation called Gyatoruzu. This and other early works were created under his given name. During this period, he composed for Sasuga no Sarutobi (Academy of Ninja) and Futari Taka (A Full Throttle).

In the 1970s, Japanese popular music, electronic music, and new-age music flourished; those genres, as well as the Yellow Magic Orchestra (a Japanese electronic band in 1978–1983), influenced Hisaishi's compositions. He developed his music from minimalist ideas and expanded toward orchestral work. Around 1975, Hisaishi presented his first public performance, spreading his name around his community. His first album, MKWAJU, was released in 1981, with Information being released a year later.

As his works were becoming well known, Hisaishi formulated an alias inspired by Quincy Jones, an African-American musician and producer. Retranscribed in Japanese, "Quincy Jones" became "Joe Hisaishi." ("Quincy," pronounced "Kuishi" in Japanese, can be written using the same kanji in "Hisaishi"; "Joe" comes from "Jones.")

In 1983, with his new name, Hisaishi was recommended by a record company to create an album for Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. Hisaishi and the director of the animated film, Hayao Miyazaki, became great friends and would work together on many future projects. This big break led to Hisaishi's overwhelming success as a composer of film scores. In 1986, Laputa: Castle in the Sky, and later, in the 1990s, Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away, were released. As Hisaishi strengthened his reputation as one of the budding anime industry's top musical contributors, his compositions (including eight theatrical films and one OAV) would proceed to become some of the very hallmarks of early anime in the 1980s and 1990s. Hisaishi also composed for such TV hits as Sasuga no Sarutobi, Two Down Full Base and anime Tekuno porisu 21C (all 1982), Sasrygar (1983), Futari Taka (1984), Honō no Alpen Rose (1985) and Ozu no mahôtsukai (1986). He also scored the sci-fi adventure series Mospeada (1983), which was later reworked (without his music) into the third segment of Carl Macek's compilation, Robotech. Other films he scored included Birth (Bâsu) (1984), Arion (1986), Totoro (1988), Venus Wars (1989), Kiki's Delivery Service (1989), and Porco Rosso (1992).

As more exposure was given to Hisaishi and the anime industry, his career grew. He initiated a solo career, began to produce music, and created his own label (Wonder Land Inc.). A year later, the label released its first album, Pretender, in New York.

As a result of his work throughout the years, Hisaishi has won the Japanese Academy Award for Best Music six times—in 1992, 1993,1994, 1999,2000,2009,and 2011. He also received the 48th Newcomer Award in 1997 from the Ministry of Education (Public Entertainment Section) among numerous other awards, being recognized as an influential figure in the Japanese film industry.

In 1998, he provided the soundtrack to the 1998 Winter Paralympics. The following year, he composed the music for the third installment in a series of popular computer-animated educational films about the human body.

In 2001, Hisaishi produced music for Takeshi Kitano's film, Brother, and Hayao Miyazaki's masterpiece, Spirited Away. He also served as executive producer of the Night Fantasia 4 Movement at the Japan Expo in Fukushima 2001. On October 6, Hisaishi made his debut as a film director in Quartet, having also written both its music and script. The film received excellent reviews at the Montreal Film Festival. His first soundtrack for a foreign film, Le Petit Poucet, was released in the same year.

Joe Hisaishi in Krakow, 2011

Another Miyazaki film, Howl's Moving Castle, for which Hisaishi composed the score, was released on November 20, 2004 in Japan. From November 3 to November 29, 2004, Hisaishi embarked on his "Joe Hisaishi Freedom – Piano Stories 2004" tour with Canadian musicians. In 2005, he composed the soundtrack for the Korean film, Welcome to Dongmakgol (웰컴 투 동막골). He also partook in Korea's historically landmarked big budget drama series production by composing the soundtrack for Korea's MBC drama series, The Legend (태왕사신기 "The Story of the First King's Four Gods"), which released in 2007. Hisaishi has a large fan base in Korea due to the popularity of Miyazaki films.

In 2006, Hisaishi released a studio album, Asian X.T.C., the compositions of which demonstrated a significantly eclectic and contemporary Eastern style. The erhu player of the Chinese band 12 Girls Band Zhan Li Jun played in a live concert featuring music from that album. The following year, he composed and recorded the soundtrack for Frederic Lepage's film, Sunny and the Elephant and the Miyazaki film, Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea, both released in 2008, as well as the score for Jiang Wen's film, The Sun Also Rises.

In 2008, Hisaishi composed soundtracks for Academy Award-winning film Departures as well as for I'd Rather Be a Shellfish (私は貝になりたい Watashi wa Kai ni Narita), a post-World War II war crimes trial drama which is based on the 1959 Tetsutaro Kato novel and film currently being remade and directed by Katsuo Fukuzawa, starring Masahiro Nakai and Yukie Nakama.

Hisaishi also released a new solo album in early 2009 featuring tracks from Shellfish and Departures.

In November 2009, he was awarded with a Medal of Honour with purple ribbon by the Government of Japan.

Quimondo

Quimondo

Studio Ghibli

Ghibli is a famous studio which was bulit by Miyazaki. If we talk about Miyazaki, we can not ignores the important studio which is also the most wonderful animation film studio in the world.

The feature of Ghibli

The company's logo features the character Totoro (a large forest spirit) from Hayao Miyazaki's film My Neighbor Totoro.

The name of Ghibli

The name Ghibli is based on the Arabic name for the sirocco, or Mediterranean wind, which the Italians used for their Saharan scouting planes in the Second World War, the idea being the studio would blow a new wind through the Japanese anime industry.

The history of studio Ghibli

Founded in June 1985, the studio is headed by the directors Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata and the producer Toshio Suzuki. Prior to the formation of the studio, Miyazaki and Takahata had already had long careers in Japanese film and television animation and had worked together on Hols: Prince of the Sun and Panda! Go, Panda!; and Suzuki was an editor at Tokuma Shoten's Animage manga magazine.

The studio was founded after the success of the 1984 film Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, written and directed by Miyazaki for Topcraft and distributed by Tōei. The origins of the film lie in the first two volumes of a serialized manga written by Miyazaki for publication in Animage as a way of generating interest in an anime version.

Suzuki was part of the production team on the film and founded Studio Ghibli with Miyazaki, who also invited Takahata to join the new studio.

The studio has mainly produced films by Miyazaki, with the second most prolific director being Takahata (most notably with Grave of the Fireflies). Other directors who have worked with Studio Ghibli include Yoshifumi Kondo, Hiroyuki Morita and Gorō Miyazaki. Composer Joe Hisaishi has provided the soundtrack for all of Miyazaki's Studio Ghibli films.

Many of Ghibli's works are distributed in Japan by Toho. Internationally, the Walt Disney Company has rights to all of Ghibli's output that did not have previous international distribution, including the global, non-Japan distribution rights to Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away.As of September 7, they currently share domestic rights with GKids.

Over the years, there has been a close relationship between Studio Ghibli and the magazine Animage, which regularly runs exclusive articles about the studio and its members in a section titled "Ghibli Notes." Artwork from Ghibli's films and other works are frequently featured on the cover of the magazine. Between 1999 and 2005 Studio Ghibli was a subsidiary of Tokuma Shoten, the publisher of Animage.

In October 2001, the Ghibli Museum opened in Tokyo. It contains exhibits based on Studio Ghibli films and shows animations, including a number of short Studio Ghibli films not available elsewhere.

The company is well known for its strict "no-edits" policy in licensing their films abroad. This was a result of the dubbing of Miyazaki's Nausicaä of the Valley of Wind when the film was released in the United States as Warriors of the Wind. The film was heavily edited and Americanized, with significant portions cut and the plot rewritten. The "no cuts" policy was highlighted when Miramax co-chairman Harvey Weinstein suggested editing Princess Mononoke to make it more marketable. In response, a Studio Ghibli producer sent an authentic katana with a simple message: "No cuts".

On February 1, 2008, Toshio Suzuki stepped down from the position of Studio Ghibli president, which he had held since 2005, and Koji Hoshino (former president of Walt Disney Japan) took over. Suzuki said he wanted to improve films with his own hands as a producer, rather than demanding this from his employees. Suzuki decided to hand over the presidency to Hoshino because Hoshino has helped Studio Ghibli to sell its videos since 1996, also helping to release the Princess Mononoke film in the United States.

Currently, Takahata and Goro Miyazaki (director of Tales from Earthsea and Hayao's son) are developing projects for release after Hiromasa Yonebayashi's The Borrower Arrietty. Goro Miyazaki's next film is going to be Kokurikozaka kara while Takahata is working on an adaptation about the tale of princess Kaguya or the bamboo cutter, Taketori Monogatari.

Never before has a Studio Ghibli short been shown outside Japan, but for the Carnegie Hall Citywise Japan NYC Festival, "House Hunting" and "Mon Mon the Water Spider" were screened on March 26, 2011.

Who is Hayao Miyazaki ?

Hayao Miyazaki(宮崎 駿) Miyazaki Hayao, born January 5, 1941) is a Japanese manga artist and prominent film director and animator of many popular anime feature films. Through a career that has spanned nearly fifty years, Miyazaki has attained international acclaim as a maker of animated feature films and, along with Isao Takahata, co-founded Studio Ghibli, an animation studio and production company. The success of Miyazaki's films has invited comparisons with American animator Walt Disney, British animator Nick Park and Robert Zemeckis, and he has been named one of the most influential people by Time magazine.

Born in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Miyazaki began his animation career in 1961 when he joined Toei Animation. From there, Miyazaki worked as an in-between artist for Gulliver's Travels Beyond the Moon where he pitched his own ideas that eventually became the movie's ending. He continued to work in various roles in the animation industry over the decade until he was able to direct his first feature film Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro which was released in 1979. After the success of his next film, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, he co-founded Studio Ghibli where he continued to produce many feature films until his temporary retirement in 1997 following Princess Mononoke.

While Miyazaki's films have long enjoyed both commercial and critical success in Japan, he remained largely unknown to the West until Miramax Films released Princess Mononoke. Princess Mononoke was the highest-grossing film in Japan—until it was eclipsed by another 1997 film, Titanic—and the first animated film to win Picture of the Year at the Japanese Academy Awards. Miyazaki returned to animation with Spirited Away. The film topped Titanic's sales at the Japanese box office, also won Picture of the Year at the Japanese Academy Awards and was the first anime film to win an American Academy Award.

Miyazaki's films often incorporate recurrent themes like humanity's relationship to nature and technology, and the difficulty of maintaining a pacifist ethic. Reflecting Miyazaki's feminism, the protagonists of his films are often strong, independent girls or young women. Miyazaki is a vocal critic of capitalism and globalization. While two of his films, The Castle of Cagliostro and Castle in the Sky, involve traditional villains, his other films like Nausicaä or Princess Mononoke present morally ambiguous antagonists with redeeming qualities.