Anime Film Festival Arrives at Picturehouse Central in London Next Month

The organisers of the Anime Film Festival have announced that Picturehouse Cinemas’s flagship cinema, Picturehouse Central in Piccadilly Circus, will play host to the event next month, specifically on 7th September 2019, with an entire day of animated cinematic masterpieces being shown including Makoto Shinkai’s Your Name and Mamoru Hosoda’s MIRAI.

Tickets are now available to purchase on the official Anime Film Festival website with tickets available to purchase individually for each film or as a ‘bundle’ that grants viewers to all four films. Each film will be presented in Japanese with English subtitles with the full list of films, along with times on when they will be shown, can be found below:

Mirai (PG): 2.20pm
From acclaimed director Mamoru Hosoda (Wolf Children, Summer Wars) comes Mirai, a daringly original story of the importance of family across generations, and the first non-Studio Ghibli anime film to be nominated for an Academy Award.

When four-year-old Kun meets his new baby sister, his world is turned upside down. Named Mirai (meaning “future”), the baby quickly wins the hearts of Kun’s entire family as he becomes increasingly jealous… until one day he storms off into the garden, where he encounters his sister as a teenager who has travelled through time! Together, Kun and teenaged Mirai go on a journey through time and space, uncovering their family’s incredible story. But why did Mirai come from the future in the first place?

Penguin Highway (12): 4.30pm
A recently-made hidden gem, this off-kilter coming-of-age story is based on the best-selling novel by Tomohiko Morimi, author of Night is Short, Walk on Girl and The Tatami Galaxy, and is the feature film debut by a rising star of the anime world, Hiroyasu Ishida.

Budding genius Aoyama is only in the 4th grade, but already lives his life like a scientist. When penguins start appearing in his sleepy suburb hundreds of miles from the sea, Aoyama vows to solve the mystery. When he discovers a link between the source of the penguins and a woman from his dentist’s office, they team up for an unforgettable summer adventure!

Your Name. (12): 7.00pm
Mitsuha and Taki are complete strangers living separate lives until they suddenly switch places. Mitsuha wakes up in Taki’s body, and he in hers. This occurrence happens randomly, and they must adjust their lives around each other. When a connection forms, will distance be the only thing to keep them apart?

From director Makoto Shinkai comes a beautiful masterpiece about time, the thread of fate, and the hearts of two young souls. When it was released in 2016, this film became the highest grossing anime film of all time and received numerous awards and accolades.

Redline (15): 9.15pm
Every five years an exhilarating race called Redline is held, the universe’s most anticipated competition. Racers are pushed to their absolute limit, while organized crime and militaristic governments want to leverage the race for their own ends. Amongst the elite rival drivers in the tournament, JP falls for the alluring Sonoshee – but will she prove his undoing, or can a high speed romance survive a mass destruction race?

Produced by the acclaimed studio Madhouse (Death Note, Paprika, Overlord) and directed by Takeshi Koike, Redline took seven years and over 100,000 hand-drawn frames to make. Having never received a wide cinema release in the UK, join us for an incredibly rare chance to see this masterpiece of animation on the big screen!

MIRAI, as well as Your Name, is available on Blu-ray and DVD in the UK via Anime Limited (All The Anime) while Redline has previously been released on Blu-ray and DVD in the UK via Manga Entertainment UK. Penguin Highway meanwhile has yet to receive a UK Blu-ray or DVD release.