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London Film Festival Screens Makoto Shinkai's Children who Chase Lost Voices from Deep Below (Hoshi o Ou Kodomo) (Updated)

The London Film Festival will include the U.K. premiere of Makoto Shinkai's latest feature film, Children Who Chase Lost Voices from Deep Below (Hoshi o Ou Kodomo), page here. The screenings will be on Tuesday October 18 at 6.15 p.m. at the BFI Southbank cinema, and on the following Saturday October 22nd at 12.45 p.m. at the Vue West End cinema in Leicester Square.

Telephone and online booking begins for BFI members at 9.30 a.m. on September 19, and for the general public on September 26th. (The booking number is 0207 9283232.) BFI members can also book by post, with postal bookings processed from September 14 (postal form here). The BFI Southbank screening costs £10.50, and the Vue West End screening is £14.

The film centres on Asuna, a girl who spends her solitary days listening to the mysterious music emanating from the crystal radio she received from her father as a memento. She embarks on a journey of adventure in the underground realm of Agartha, and thus comes to know the cruelty and beauty of the world. The festival deems the film suitable for viewers aged 10 and over.

The film is the latest work by Shinkai, the creator of Voices of a Distant Star, The Place Promised in Our Early Days, and 5 Centimeters Per Second. The new film opened in Japan on May 7.

Takayo Nishimura (5 Centimeters Per Second, Before Green Gables) designed the characters and oversaw the animation process. Takumi Tanji (5 Centimeters Per Second, The Place Promised in Our Early Days) directed the art, and musical composer Tenmon (5 Centimeters Per Second, The Place Promised in Our Early Days, Voices of a Distant Star) collaborated with Shinkai again on this project.

Images © Makoto Shinkai/CMMMY

Update - The festival also includes Muybridge's Strings, a Japanese-Canadian short animation directed by the Oscar-nominated Koji Yamamura (Mt. Head, Franz Kafka's A Country Doctor). It will be included in the International Animation Panorma Programme 2 (link), which will be shown at the BFI Southbank cinema twice, on October 18 and 23.

Masaki Okuda's short film A Gum Boy will be shown in the Animated Shorts for Younger Audiences section (link) at the BFI Southbank on October 15.

Update 2 - Booking details amended.