During his tenure at Studio Ghibli, Japanese filmmaker Yoshiaki Nishimura worked on such animated classics as Howl's Moving Castle, Tales From Earthsea, and Ponyo. He earned back-to-back Best Animated Feature Film Oscar nominations in 2015 and 2016 for producing The Tale of Princess Kaguya and When Marnie Was There. After a decade at Studio Ghibli, he left in 2015 to found his own studio.
Nishimura's Studio Poncoc is behind 2017's Mary and the Witch's Flower, 2018's Modest Heroes, and 2021's Tomorrow's Leaves, a short film commemorating the Tokyo Olympics. "One thing I really value is telling very different, diverse stories," Nishimura says. What all Studio Poncoc projects have in common is a desire to make movies that speak directly to young audiences. "I'm very aware of the fact that our primary target audience is children, so we really want to avoid making anything that seems like it's talking down to kids."
The studio's latest offering is The Imaginary, an animated adaptation of author A.F. Harrold's 2014 novel of the same name about an imaginary friend fighting to not be forgotten. Nishimura produces the film and, for the first time in his career, is the sole credited screenwriter. "I believe one film can change the world," he says, "so at Studio Ponoc, our basic mentality is that even though children all grow up, we can create something that will remain in their hearts when they get older."
Below, Nishimura shares with A.frame five of his favorite films. Fittingly, "All five of the films I've picked really center children and their perspectives."
Directed by: Vittorio De Sica | Written by: Oreste Biancoli, Suso Cecchi D'Amico, Vittorio De Sica, Adolfo Franci, Gherardo Gherardi, Gerardo Guerrieri, and Cesare Zavattini
I have to start with Bicycle Thieves, because it exposed me to Italian neorealism. I grew up on Japanese and American movies, so it was refreshing to see a film like Bicycle Thieves that realistically depicts the relationship between a parent and their child and does it so beautifully. When I saw it, I was very moved.
My favorite scene is when the father comes out of the church and his son says that he doesn't care about finding their bicycle anymore. His father hits him, and then the camera lets you watch as the child and the father separate themselves from each other. Watching the film visually depict the sudden distance between the two characters in the wake of that moment, I thought, "Oh my god, this is so well done." There are many scenes in that film that are just as impressive, and I learned so much about depicting realistic human relationships from the Italian neorealist movement.
Directed by: Chris Columbus | Written by: Randi Mayem Singer and Leslie Dixon
Mrs. Doubtfire is one of my favorite films. I love it. I've seen it so many times. As a child, I had a similar experience as the children in the film. I grew up living apart from my father, so when I watched the movie for the first time as a young kid, I related to it a lot. Then, after I grew up and became a parent, I thought, "What kind of father should I be to my kids?" and I said to myself, "I'll be like Daniel in Mrs. Doubtfire." He's a bit of a role model to me.
Directed and Written by: Isao Takahata
Grave of the Fireflies was made by the maestro Isao Takahata, who I made The Tale of the Princess Kaguya with. I saw Grave of the Fireflies when I was 10 or 11, and I remember watching it in the years after maybe 100 times. When I was a kid, I really didn't believe in the goodness of the world or in the intentions of grown-ups. But I watched that film, and it affected me so deeply that I thought, "I can trust the adult who made this." It really changed my life.
It became the reason why I eventually started working at Studio Ghibli. It was a really foundational film for me, because when I watched it for the first time, I felt like, "Whoever made this, made this for me.
Directed by: Jan Svěrák | Written by: Zdeněk Svěrák
Kolya is a beautiful film about a woman who wants to defect from Russia, but in order to do so, she has to leave her child with a cellist in Soviet-occupied Czechoslovakia. The cellist isn't very comfortable parenting and doesn't know how to handle a child, but he somehow manages to do so. There is this one absolutely fabulous scene in it, where the older man witnesses the child having a conversation that he doesn't think anyone can hear, and that scene had a huge impact on me and influenced how I wrote the scenes between Amanda and her imaginary friend, Rudger, in The Imaginary. Kolya really moved me when I saw it, and it has left a lasting mark on me.
Directed by: Peter Weir | Written by: Tom Schulman
I've seen Dead Poets Society 100 or 200 times. I know all the lines in it by heart at this point. I saw it for the first time when I was 14. I was in school at that time, and it completely moved me. Robin Williams is amazing in it, Ethan Hawke is incredible in it, and its insistence that you should make your life extraordinary and seize the day made it a kind of guiding light for me in life.
Funnily enough, when Isao Takahata and I were fortunate enough to be invited to the Oscars for The Tale of the Princess Kaguya, I noticed Ethan Hawke walk by us as we were leaving the ceremony at the end of the night. I asked director Takahata to wait a moment, and I walked up to Ethan and I said, "When I watched your film is when I decided to become a filmmaker. Thank you so much for your work." He hugged me and he said, "Well, if you're a filmmaker, I know that means we'll meet here again one day." It was a wonderful moment.
