Mamoru Hosoda and Studio Chizu’s new BELLE (Ryū to Sobakasu no Hime, literally “The Dragon and the Freckled Princess”) anime film won the Special Jury Prize at GKIDS, Annecy, and Variety magazine’s Animation Is Film festival.
The festival hosted the film’s West Coast premiere along with the world premiere of the English dub for Poupelle of Chimney Town on October 23.
The film had its North American premiere at New York Film Festival on September 25.
(The director’s previous Mirai film screened at the Directors’ Fortnight, an independent section held in parallel to the festival, in 2018.)