Maru and the Witch's Flower, new movie director Hiromasa Yonebayashi

Studio Ponoc, the animation studio founded by Studio Ghibli's producer Yoshiaki Nishimura, has announced that her first animated film will be Maru and the Witch's Flower, or Mary to Majo no Hana. The film will be released in the summer of 2017 and is based on Mary Stewart's The Little Broomstick.

The studio has posted two videos, and although in the Japanese marks the premiere for summer of 2017, in English only marks a 2017 to dry.

 Hiromasa Yonebayashi, director of The World of Arriety and The Remembrance of Marnie, is the director of this film. Yonebayashi also writes the screenplay along with Riko Sakaguchi, who scripted the Tale of Princess Kaguya by Isao Takahata. Takatsugu Muramatsu (The memory of Marnie) is responsible for composing the music. Nishimura also appears credited as a producer, and the official website of the film reveals that many old components of Studio Ghibli have joined Ponoc for production.

Mary enters the forest following a black cat, and there finds a strange flower. Shortly afterwards he finds a broom and it is not long before he climbs into it, which takes him beyond the sky to the Endor School, a school for witches. However, he will discover that a terrible experiment is taking place in which animals become mutant monsters and locked in cages. When she returns home scared, she discovers that Tib, the black cat who took her to the forest, has been captured, so she decides to go back to the magic school to rescue the animals.

Nishimura founded Studio Ponoc in April 2015 after leaving Ghibli the previous year.