Beloved animation facility Studio Ghibli may have stopped producing full-length films, but that doesn't mean the magic is gone. Now, rising like a phoenix, is Studio Ponoc, formed by several animators from Ghibli, and their first planned release, Mary And The Witch's Flower. Watch the first trailer below.
Adapting Mary Stewart’s The Littlest Broomstick, the film finds young Mary meeting a black cat and discovering a strange flower in the woods. Before long, she's flying over the treetops on a broomstick and discovering a world of magic. Arriving at Endor College, which purports to teach magic, she discovers a dark purpose lurking at its heart and resolves to stop it.
Hiromasa Yonebayashi, director of Arrietty and When Marnie Was There, is overseeing this one alongside writer Riko Sakaguchi and a team that formed Studio Ponoc last year after leaving Ghibli. We don't yet know when Mary And The Witch's Flower will be released (the trailer only says 2017), nor whether Disney will be working on a translated version. But this is good news, and much needed in 2016...
You can read more about the new studio via Robbie Collin in the Telegraph, though you'll need to become a member or subscribe to read the whole article.