Hayao Miyazaki’s ‘How Do You Live’ is 125 Minutes, No Plans for Festivals

We are 40 days away until the Japanese theatrical release of “How Do You Live?” the new film by Hayao Miyazaki. It’s up there with out most anticipated films of the year, alongside Fincher, Lanthimos and Nolan.

Studio Ghibli head Toshio Suzuki has confirmed that the film will be 125 minutes long. This fits well with past Miyazakis which were at around the same runtime.

A few months ago, I was told Cannes boss Thierry Frémaux tried as hard as he could to get Hayao Miyazaki’s “How Do You Live” in competition, but it seems as though Miyazaki just doesn’t want to do film festivals at all. Not even Venice.

Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli are perfectly content in having their latest film screen to the Japanese public before the rest of the world, just as they have done with almost every other film of his.

“How Do You Live” will be released on July 14th in Japan. It is now a high possibility that Miyazaki will skip the Venice Film Festival entirely. No US release date has been set for the film, but signs are pointing towards a fall release.

If there is indeed no festival bow for Miyazaki then we can expect a general release strategy sometime in October or November. I am not aware of any dubbed versions at the moment, but that will likely change very soon, especially with a trailer rumored to be released in the coming weeks.

In 2013 Miyazaki said he was retiring and that his last film would be the bittersweet WWII drama “The Wind Rises.” That retirement was clearly short-lived.

We had reported last October that “How Do You Live” was nearing its completion and a 2023 release date was being eyed. The film is an adaptation of a novel that has long influenced Miyazaki — he’s even cited it as his favorite childhood read.

Where many animators might simplify the visual elements of their hand-drawn animated movies, Miyazaki has always adhered to a painstakingly difficult process. That’s why he’s been working at a pace of animating about one minute of “How Do You Live?” per month since 2017. This film has been six years in the making.

The legendary Japanese filmmaker of such classics as “Spirited Away,” “Princess Mononoke” and “My Neighbor Totoro” has always been suspicious of computers and personally draws his own frames by hand, which number in the thousands per film. As a result, Miyazaki’s films have always been richly conceived, with beautiful lavish colors and a masterful sense of detail rarely seen in western animation.