Isao Takahata and His Tale of The Princess Kaguya documentary scheduled for March UK release

We already know that Isao Takahata's first film for Studio Ghibli in fourteen years, The Tale of Princess Kaguya, is due for a theatrical release here in the UK from March 20th courtesy of STUDIOCANAL.

If you're keen to know more about this film and the creative process surrounding it, it's also worth noting that just days later, on March 23rd 2015, STUDIOCANAL have also scheduled a DVD release of subtitled documentary film Isao Takahata and His Tale of The Princess Kaguya to hit retail shelves, as well as a digital release of the documentary via iTunes.

Here's the full breakdown and synopsis for this two-part documentary, both parts of which will be contained within this release:

Part 1 (approx. 43 minutes) Animation director Isao Takahata embarks on production of "The Tale of The Princess Kaguya", his first film in 14 years. The first half of the documentary covers the process by which he came to take on the project, the pre-recording of the character voices, and the reasons behind the establishment of "Ghibli Studio 7", a facility set up to meet the demands of a new type of animation that does not fit easily into the traditional Ghibli animation process. Deriving characters from the recorded voices, the production gets underway, but quickly falls behind schedule.

Part 2 (approx. 43 minutes) Production on "The Tale of The Princess Kaguya" is already well behind schedule when director Isao Takahata decides on composer Joe Hisaishi to score the film's soundtrack, and singer Kazumi Nikaido for the theme song. With a third of the film's storyboards remaining to be done, producer Yoshiaki Nishimura suspends all other activities while Takahata and Storyboard Artist Osamu Tanabe work through the New Year's holiday. A simultaneous release with Hayao Miyazaki's "The Wind Rises" is abandoned, and the staff works frantically to meet the new date, now set for November 2013.