From Up on Poppy Hill

Based on the manga 'From Up on Poppy Hill [Kokuriko-zaka kara]' by Chizuru Takahashi and Tetsurô Sayama. This film is second feature film directed by Gorô Miyazaki, Hayao Miyazaki's son, after 'Tales from Earthsea' in 2006.

Set in Yokohama, year 1963, Umi Matsuzaki is a high school student who, together with her grandmother, is in charge of managing a western-style boarding house, the Coquelicot Manor, in the old family mansion, located on top of a hill full of poppies. Her mother, Ryoko, works as a professor at the University of New York, which causes Umi to take charge also of her siblings.

While the girl combines her life in the high school with the administration of the boarding house, one day she meets Shiro Mizunuma, president of the student council, and Shun Kazama, member of the journalism club. Both are leaders of the platform that asks to avoid the demolition of the Quartier Latin, an old building that houses the different student associations of high school, and that the administration plans to tear down to build another more modern building, on the occasion of the Olympic Games to be held in Tokyo the following year. Between Umi and Kazama will emerge a love story that will be muddied by ancient secrets of the past. A historical moment in which Japan wanted to forget its past and only look to the future.