Mary and the Witch's Flower, a remarkable film but not a contender.

            Studio Ponoc, a Japanese animation studio founded by the former lead film producer of Studio Ghibli, Yoshiaki Nishimura. In the year 2017 Studio Ponoc released the film Mary and the Witch’s Flower in the same year it was adapted for Western audiences with a full English audio dubbed over the Japanese audio. In terms of the International Feature Film Oscar category there are four rules that must be met for a film to be considered for this category. The rules that must be met are as follows: the film must run in commercial theatres in its home country for at least a week, the film’s dialog must be predominantly non-English, lastly the “creative control” of the film must primarily have been in the hands of the nominating country’s people. Studio Ponoc while a Japanese animation studio, did not meet these requirements to get nominated the film in itself shows just what the Studio is capable of. 

            In terms of requirements that failed to be meet by Mary and the Witch’s Flower the list is quite extensive. Studio Ponoc’s Mary and the Witch’s Flower was aired in Japan under the title Meari to Majo no Hana to its theaters earning roughly 428 million yen during its opening weekend. The film continued to air on roughly 458 screens throughout Japan, earning it the title of the sixth highest grossing film of the year in Japan. The film’s dialog while airing in Japan was Japanese; however, the English dubbed version is the version primarily found outside of Japan in terms of streaming services and film viewings. The requirement states the dialog must be predominantly non-English, and while that is true for the Japan screening it is not true for the other versions of the film, so it resides in a grey area. The secondary requirement that a film must meet is the requirement for the “creative control” to be in the hands of the nominating people, and with Mary and the Witch’s flower this is where the true issue arises. Primarily the “creative control” of the film comes from its source material where for Mary and the Witch’s flower is a British children’s novel called The Little Broomstick originally written by Mary Stewart in 1971.

While Studio Ponoc was in charge of the animation style of the film the overall story and themes are held within the confides of the source material and therefore cannot be in the hands of the nominating people. In this is the figurative nail in the coffin of Mary and the Witch’s Flower’s chances to be nominated for the International Feature Film Oscar.

            While Mary and the Witch’s Flower was a remarkable film to view, with its Studio Ghibli like animation and storying telling, the film suffered from the crux that is nonlocal source material. Under the requirements presented by the International Feature Film Oscar Mary and the Witch’s Flower could not have been submitted in turn of the 2017 submission that was Yu o Wakasu Hodo no Atsui Ai (Her Love Boils Bathwater) which was submitted but not nominated for the award.