WATERVILLE — The Maine Film Center plans to offer a free screening of “My Neighbor Totoro” at noon Sunday, April 2, in the Paul J. Schupf Art Center, 93 Main St.

As part of Waterville Creates’ Listening to Film series, the screening will be preceded by a discussion of the film’s sound design by Colby students in MU237A (Film Music and Sound).

Admission is free due to sponsorship from Colby’s Music Department, Department of Cinema Studies, and The Center for the Arts and Humanities.

This collaboration between director Hayao Miyazaki and composer Joe Hisaishi explores themes of childhood and nostalgia. As their mother recuperates from an illness, sisters Satsuki and Mei move to the Japanese countryside with their father, where they encounter the fantastical Totoros. The film’s attention to realistic detail of the girls’ daily lives, combined with its easy slippage into the fantastical, suggests that the border between real and magical worlds is one that only children can cross, according to a news release from the film center.

Hisaishi’s score develops these themes, blending elements of Japanese children’s songs, popular music, orchestral and electronic film music, and American minimalism, as well as embracing the composer’s own signature sounds.

The film is rated G. Its length is 86 minutes.

For more information, visit mainefilmcenter.org.

 

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