When Marnie was there

(Cert U, 103 mins)

Nominated as Best Animated Feature at this year’s Oscars, writer-director Hiromasa Yonebayashi’s tender coming-of-age story is sensitively adapted from Joan G Robinson’s book of the same name.

Twelve-year-old Anna Sasaki (voiced by Sara Takatsuki) lives in Sapporo with her foster parents but she remains emotionally aloof, conscious that they are only taking care of her because the state pays them.

Following a severe asthma attack in the city, Anna’s foster mother sends the girl to spend the summer with relatives who live by the sea, where there is less smog.

In this coastal idyll, Anna is inextricably drawn to a crumbling mansion, located across an overgrown salt marsh.

She encounters a young girl called Marnie and becomes drawn into the history of the mansion.