Academy Award-winning director-animator Hayao Miyazaki was named Tuesday as the recipient of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association’s Career Achievement award.
LAFCA’s other top awards will be decided by the membership on Dec. 9, and those winners will be honored along with Miyazaki at the organization’s annual awards dinner on Jan. 12 at the InterContinental Hotel in Century City.
“We are thrilled to be presenting our Career Achievement award to Hayao Miyazaki, who has transported our members — and audiences around the world — to his enchanting, indelible and vividly imaginative worlds through his gorgeous and thematically rich animation,” said LAFCA President Claudia Puig.
“The way in which Miyazaki inspires an audience’s sense of wonder is unmatched,” she said. “I particularly admire his depiction of self-sufficient, determined and courageous female characters who don’t need saving. He has explained his cinematic approach simply: `Any woman is just as capable of being a hero as any man.’ These words resonate more powerfully than ever in our current times.”
As the co-founder of Studio Ghibli, Miyazaki has been responsible for such films as “Spirited Away,” “My Neighbor Totoro,” “Princess Mononoke” and “Howl’s Moving Castle.”
The 77-year-old Japanese director, writer, producer and animator is currently working on a feature length film called “How Do You Live?,” which is expected to be released by 2020.