Der Junge und der Reiher

In the organizer's words:

One year after winning the Oscar for Best Animated Film, "The Boy and the Heron" will be screened on two dates: Saturday, March 1 at 10:45 pm OmU (Japanese with German subtitles) and Sunday, March 2 at 12:00 am (German version).

The fantastic anime of the Japanese Studio Ghibli are very popular with young and old. The light pearls bring selected films from the studio back to the big screen. Always with an introduction and supporting film.

After his mother dies in a hospital fire during the Second World War, eleven-year-old Mahito is forced to leave Tokyo. He moves in with his father and his father's new wife in an old mansion on a huge country estate. Isolated from the world, Mahito begins to explore the enchanted landscapes that surround his new home and encounters a mysterious gray heron that stubbornly stays by his side. Gradually, the heron becomes his guide and helps him to better understand the world around him and unravel the mysteries of life.

Few Japanese directors are as well known outside their home country as Miyazaki Hayao. He won the Oscar for Best Animated Film in 2003 with 'Chihiro's Journey to Magic Land'. In 2024, he won another Oscar for "The Boy and the Heron". To mark this award, the Lichtperlen are bringing a film from Studio Ghibli back to theaters every month until the day of the next Oscar. The grand finale is "The Boy and the Heron". All films in this series are shown in German on Sundays at lunchtime as a family-friendly screening and in the original Japanese with German subtitles, in a late screening on a Saturday.

Each screening is accompanied by an introduction and a supporting film. The magic of Studio Ghibli films unfolds in the cinema in a very special way. The following titles were shown in the series from November 24 to March 25: "Kiki's Little Delivery Service", "The Castle in the Sky", "Princess Mononoke", "The Legend of Princess Kaguya" and "The Boy and the Heron".