Mamorou Hosaoda's
Mirai of the Future was the big winner at the International Stuttgart Festival of Animated Film, taking home this year's prize for Best Animated Feature Film. The festival received 60 submissions from its open-call and then whittled those down to 9 finalists.
Other anime films that have previously won the coveted word include
Your Name director Makoto Shinkai's
The Garden of Words in 2014 and Hayao Miyazaki's
Ponyo in 2010.
To date Mirai of the Future has won the Animation of the Year prize at the 42nd annual Japan Academy Prizes, Best Animated Independent Feature at the 46th Annie Awards, and was nominated for Best Animated Feature Film at the 91st Academy Awards (but lost to Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse).
Mirai follows a 4-year old boy who is struggling to cope with the arrival of a little sister in the family, until things turn magical. A mysterious garden in the backyard of the boy's home becomes a gateway allowing the child to travel back in time and encounter his mother as a little girl and his great-grandfather as a young man. These fantasy-filled adventures allow the child to change his perspective and help him become the big brother he was meant to be.
Hosoda's eldest daughter is named Mirai, which is where the title of the film is derived.