The hosts of anime film discussion podcast Ghibliotheque have announced an ongoing partnership with London’s iconic Prince Charles Cinema, which will see the podcast presenting monthly screenings of cult Japanese films.
The partnership was announced last night at a screening of Takeshi Koike’s Redline, hosted by Ghibliotheque at the Leicester Square venue. Co-hosts Jake Cunningham and Michael Leader took the stage to introduce the film, sharing some details on the film’s history, context and development from their second book, The Ghibliotheque Anime Movie Guide.
“Starting tonight and into the new year, we're going to be hosting a series at the Prince Charles Cinema called Qhibliotheque Presents…” Cunningham told PodPod prior to the event, “which is going to be us on stage doing an intro and showing one of the films maybe from our book, from our podcast, or maybe something entirely different but definitely relevant. And that's hopefully going to be once a month on a Wednesday night at the Prince Charles, forevermore!”
The screenings will start from January, and will cover “repertory anime films” and older pieces which aren’t widely known, according to Ghibliotheque co-host Michael Leader, “whether that is some of the films we already have in the book or delving into films that have maybe never even been screened before. It's gonna be really fun rifling through the archives for that.”
The pair currently don’t have any specific plans for what films will be shown as part of the partnership however, which Cunningham says is due to the fact that they’re “beholden to rights-holders” and licensing agreements.
Along with an opportunity to promote their podcastand books, the Ghibliotheque co-hosts said the partnership will likely be monetised by a revenue-sharing agreement with the cinema, splitting ticket sales between the two parties. The Prince Charles Cinema itself is no stranger to podcasts, and has been producing its own podcast, The Pod Charles Cinecast, since 2019.