ICv2 has learned that in January 2006, Turner Classic Movies, a prominent cable and satellite network, will run nine animated features by the great Japanese anime director Hayao Miyazaki.  Miyazaki's movies have received scant exposure on American TV so the showings on Turner Classic Movies should expose a wide audience to these masterworks.

A complete list of the films (and airdates) will be released next week, but ICv2 has learned that TCM will show such Miyazaki-directed classics as: Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, My Neighbor Totoro, Nausicaa: Valley of the Wind, Castle in the Sky, and Porco Rosso, as well as Whisper of the Heart, which was directed by Yoshifumi Kondou, though Miyazaki wrote the screenplay, drew the storyboards and produced the film.

Turner Classic Movies always broadcasts films in their original widescreen formats and typically airs subtitled versions of foreign films, though the linguistic format of the Miyazaki films is not known at this time.

A.O. Scott of the New York Times called Miyazaki, who won the Academy Award for 'Best Animated Feature' for Spirited Away,  'the world's greatest living animated filmmaker' (see 'Miyazaki Profiled in N.Y. Times').  Miyazaki's films are among the most popular anime DVD releases in U.S. and tend to sell for years and years after their initial release.