Pablo Berger from Bilbao was excited about his first Oscar nomination for his acclaimed animation debut with Robot Dreams, the emotional story of silent friendship between a robot and an anthropomorphic dog in New York in the 1980s that dazzled in Cannes and was won best European animated film. But the dream could not be this time and the golden statuette went to The Boy and the Heron, by the Japanese master Hayao Miyazaki, who was not able to go to the Dolby theater to collect an award presented by Chris 'Thor' Hemsworth and Anya Taylor-Joy.
The film, which has already won the Golden Globes and the Baftas, tells the story of a 12-year-old orphan boy who manages to connect with his dead mother through a new dimension when he moves to a new city and meets a talking heron. It is his most personal masterpiece about life, death, pain, loss, the mother-child relationship and friendship in an emotional story with numerous fantastic elements into which Miyazaki himself has poured part of his experiences when was child.
Produced by Studio Ghibli, The Boy and the Heron, which opened the last San Sebastian Festival, has also surpassed other films that competed in the category such as the media phenomenon Spider-Man: Crossing the Multiverse, from Sony Pictures; Elemental, from Pixar, and Nimona, from the Netflix factory. By the way, Hayao Miyazaki will take "a break" again after this film. "We'll see what he focuses on after all this," Kiyofumi Nakajima, executive producer of The Boy and the Heron, announced from the Oscars red carpet. This is the second non-English speaking film in history to win in the best animated film category, after Spirited Away (2001), also by Miyazaki.
