The anime film The Sky Crawlers didn't attract too much attention when it debuted in competition at the Venice Film Festival earlier this month, but just before it premieres on this continent at the Toronto Film Festival, it's been picked up for distribution by Sony Pictures. Variety reported the deal, which gives distribution rights to Sony in the U.S., Canada, Latin America, Australia and New Zealand.

Directed by Mamoru Oshii, who also made Ghost in the Shell, Sky Crawlers is about a group of adolescents called Kildren who fight a war that's treated as a sporting event by the public. It sounds a little like Quidditch, wouldn't you say? Rinko Kikuchi, Ryo Kase and Chiaki Kuriyama provide some voices that may sound familiar, though there's a decent show we'll see a dubbed version here, as happened with many of Miyazaki's movies released Stateside.