Studio Ghibli Awarded Princess of Asturias Award for Communication and Humanities
Humberto SaabedraOvernight in Madrid, Spain an awards selection was held to celebrate the best in international arts and culture that has had the most profound impact within the country of Spain and its varied autonomous regions. Every year, the Princess of Asturias award is voted on by a panel of judges that make up the most recognized personalities in the press and the arts, with candidates selected by recognized Spanish luminaries in the arts and humanities who vote on the panel for the selected candidates that are worthy of such a prestigious national honor, handed down by the Spanish Royal Family through the Princess of Asturias Foundation.
With Studio Ghibli being handed the Princess of Asturias award for Communication and Humanities as a collective, it marks the latest government award that Studio Ghibli has received in recognition for its work, and one usually reserved for only the highest quality works or collective output worldwide that meets the principles of the award after a collective vote.
Notable titles from the studio include Tenkū no Shiro Laputa (Laputa: Castle in the Sky, 1986), Tonari no Totoro (My Neighbor Totoro, 1988), Majo no Takkyūbin (Kiki’s Delivery Service, 1989), and Porco Rosso (1992). In 1997, the studio achieved international recognition with Mononoke-hime (Princess Mononoke), the first animated film to win the Japanese Academy Film Prize. In 2001, it released Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi (Spirited Away), which describes a girl’s symbolic journey to a fantastic world and her transition from childhood to adulthood. Considered the masterpiece of the studio and Hayao Miyazaki’s career, in this film Miyazaki unfolds a critical discourse on modern Japanese society, delving into generational conflicts, the dissolution of traditional culture in a globalized society and the destruction of the environment. The film broke all box office records and has received the most awards of any Japanese animated film in history, including the Japan Academy Film Prize for Best Film (2001), the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival (2002) and the Oscar for Best Animated Feature (2003).
Other celebrated productions from the studio include Howl no Ugoku (Howl’s Moving Castle, 2004); Gake no ue no Ponyo (Ponyo, 2008), which marked their return to hand-drawn animation without computer-generated imagery; Karigurashi no Arrietty (Arrietty, 2010); and Kaze Tachinu (The Wind Rises, 2013). The studio’s more recent feature films include Omoide no Mānī (When Marnie Was There, 2014), directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi, and Āya to Majo (Earwig and the Witch, 2020), by Gorō Miyazaki. In 2023, Miyazaki returned to directing with the film Kimitachi wa Dō Ikiru ka (The Boy and the Heron)
The Jury for the Award –convened by the Princess of Asturias Foundation– was chaired by Miguel Falomir Faus and made up of Irene Cano Piquero, Juan Fernández-Miranda Fernández-Miranda, Álex Grijelmo García, Alma Guillermoprieto, Isabel Izquierdo Peraile, Miguel Ángel Liso Tejada, Begoña Lolo Herranz, Catalina Luca de Tena y García-Conde, Marchioness of Valle de Tena, Cristina de Middel Puch, Miguel Ángel Oliver Fernández, Enrique Pascual Pons, Ana Santos Aramburo, Diana Sorensen and Óscar Loureda Lamas (as acting secretary).
This candidature was put forward by Alfonso Palacio and Sergio G. Sánchez, both members of the Jury for the 2026 Princess of Asturias Award for the Arts.
As stated in the Statutes of the Foundation, the Princess of Asturias Awards are aimed at rewarding “the scientific, technical, cultural, social and humanitarian work carried out at an international level by individuals, institutions or groups of individuals or institutions”. In keeping with these principles, the Princess of Asturias Award for Communication and Humanities is to be granted to “the work of fostering and advancing the sciences and disciplines considered humanistic activities or any activity related to social communication in any of its forms.”
This year a total of 48 candidatures comprising 20 different nationalities were put forward for the Communication and Humanities Award. The presentation of the Princess of Asturias Awards will take place in October in a solemn ceremony presided over by Their Majesties The King and Queen, accompanied by Their Royal Highnesses The Princess of Asturias and Infanta Sofía.
Each Princess of Asturias Award comprises a Joan Miró sculpture symbolizing the Award, a diploma, an insignia and a cash prize of fifty thousand euros.
