The English-language cast for Mary and the Witch’s Flower, which has been getting promotion in GKIDS Studio Ghibli film festival series this past summer, revealed its English cast back at the end of August. Now the first trailer for it in English language form has arrived to give us a taste of how the actors will be handling it. The film has Ruby Barnhill of The BFG playing the title character with Kate Winslet, Jim Broadbent, Ewen Bremner and Louis Ashbourne Serkis among the rest of the cast.
The film is directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi who also wrote the screenplay with Riko Sakaguchi at Studio Ponoc.
Altitude Film Entertainment has acquired the UK rights to bring out Mary and the Witch’s Flower while GKIDS will be handling the North American release for the work. Madman Entertainment is working the Australian release.
The Japanese cast includes Hana Sugisaki as Mary, Yuuki Amami as Madam Manbulduke, Fumiyo Kohinata as Doctor Day, Hikari Mitsushima as Akage no Majo, Jirou Satou as Furanaga, Eri Watanabe as Bankusu, Shinobu, Ootake as Charlotte, and Ryunosuke Kamiki as Peter.
Plot concept: It is Tib the black cat who leads Mary to the strange flower in the woods. When she discovers a little broomstick shortly afterward, she is astonished to feel it jump into action. Before she can gather her wits, it is whisking her over the treetops, above the clouds, and into the grounds of Endor College, where: “All Examinations Coached for by A Competent Staff of Fully-Qualified Witches.” Here she discovers evidence of a terrible experiment in transformation—deformed and mutant animals imprisoned in cages. In the moment after her broomstick takes off, she realizes that Tib has been captured. Returning to the College the following day, she manages to free the animals, but not before the Head of the college, Miss Mumblechook, and her colleague, Doctor Dee, have seen her. Mary manages to flee …but the evil pair are in hot pursuit!
