Drop-In Workshops for Families: Mini Food Prop-Making

Hayao Miyazaki’s second feature is based on his 1982 manga of the same name, which he continued writing into the early 1990s. It was the last film he released before founding Studio Ghibli with fellow director Isao Takahata and producer Toshio Suzuki. Miyazaki’s only cinematic foray into pure science fiction, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind is set a thousand years after the Seven Days of Fire have devastated civilization, leaving behind a toxic, overgrown jungle. Princess Nausicaä and the people of the valley try to bring balance back into the world by restoring the bond between humanity and Earth. Inspiration for Nausicaä came from the catastrophic mercury pollution of Minamata Bay, which devastated the Minamata community in the mid-20th century.

Ponyo focuses on the friendship between 5-year-old Sosuke and a magical goldfish named Brunhilde, the young daughter of a sorcerer father and a sea-goddess mother. After wandering away from her father’s four-flippered submarine, Brunhilde washes ashore and is discovered by the curious Sosuke. Now renamed Ponyo, her quick bond with Sosuke fuels her yearning to be a real girl, and they shoulder the cost of what that might take together. The vibrant and colorful hand-drawn animations are a visual delight for audiences of all ages, as Hayao Miyazaki builds a world filled with magical goldfish, wizards, and sea goddesses in this tale of how friendships can blossom anywhere—even in the ocean’s depths.

An adaptation of Diana Wynne Jones’s fantasy novel of the same name, the Oscar-nominated Howl’s Moving Castle is a pitch-perfect fairy tale about aging and war, set in a dazzling steampunk world. When young hatmaker Sophie is transformed into a 90-year-old woman by the vengeful Witch of the Waste, she seeks to break the curse with the help of the enigmatic wizard Howl, the fire demon Calcifer, and the magical moving castle they inhabit.