Last Shadow at First Light ★

Singapore, Japan, Slovenia, Philippines, Indonesia / 2023 / 108 min
Director： Nicole Midori WOODFORD

Aml is a high school student living with her father In Singapore. Her Japanese mother has been missing for some time since returning to Japan after the Great East Japan Earthquake. Aml frequently dreams about her mother and is convinced that she is still alive. After discovering tapes and letters left by her mother, Aml decides to follow the path she saw in her dream and heads for Japan. She sets out on a Journey to retrace her mother's footsteps In the Tohoku region with her uncle - now a Tokyo-based cab driver who is the only person who knows her last known whereabouts... Known for her short film and directing of the episode "The Excursion" from HBO Asla TV series "Folklore 2," Nicole Midori WOODFORD's debut feature film Illustrates how people confront the pain of loss. In addition to the superb cinematography by URATA Hideho, the film's supernatural depiction of ghosts and the souls of the dead coexisting with the world of the living is also highly effective. The film premiered in the New Directors Competition at the San Sebastián International Film Festival.

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Moving

Japan / 1993 / 124 min
Director：SOMAI Shinji

Renko, an intelligent and energetic sixth-grader living in Kyoto. One day her father moves out, leaving her and her mother Nazuna alone. Nazuna lays down some ground rules for their new life together but Renko is unable to understand her mother's wish to make changes. A masterwork that captures the instant a young girl abandons childhood, tom between parents on the verge of divorce. The most refined expression of the common Somai motif of boys and girls roaming unmoored in an adult-free landscape and growing up in the process. Released theatrically in Japan in 1993, and screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the Cannes Film Festival. The original 35mm negative was digitally restored in 4K for the film's 30th anniversary, premiering in the Venice Classics section of the 80th Venice International Film Festival held from August to September, where it won the award for Best Restored Film.

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Performing Hiroshima

Japan / 2023 / 133 min
Director：MIMA Akihiro, YAMADA Saki, KUSANO Natsuka, ENDO Mikihiro

A woman who lives with her partner in an apartment in Hiroshima City regularly meets her friend at the riverside to co-write poems together in MIMA Akihiro’s “A WINDOW WITH NO NANE” A woman exposed to in utero radiation about one kilometer from the epicenter of where the atomic bomb was dropped speaks into the camera as herself, her mother, and the narrator of someone else’s life in YAMADA Saki's “Represent HIROSHIMA with Hiroe” KUSANO Natsuka's “Till The End Of The Dream” depicts the daily life of a woman struggling with the loss of someone close to her. Finally, ENDO Mikihiro's “No matter where” takes up a theater group rehearsing plays about Hiroshima and a young member of their sound crew collecting sounds outdoors. An anthology of short films about Hiroshima, target of the atomic bomb, produced by the theater company Marebito no Kai as part of a larger project also including two earlier installments entitled “Performing Nagasaki” (2013-16) and “Performing Fukushima” (2016-18).

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They give me a day I will never forget

Japan / 2023 / 69 min
Director：IWASAKI Kanshi

Koto, a freelance sound designer, awaits for her former lover Shoichi at the airport when he temporarily returns from the Philippines. Their romantic relationship has practically ended ever since Shoichi went abroad, but Shoichi ends up staying at their former apartment complex where Koto now lives alone. This does not bring them back together, and Koto continues with her daily life... This is the first feature film by IWASAKI Kanshi, who studied directing under MANDA Kunitoshi at THE FILM SCHOOL OF TOKYO and has worked as an assistant director and sound recordist on films by MIYAZAKI Daisuke and KIYOHARA Yui. The subtle camerawork and attention to sound are superb, but what is most impressive is the lead actress MURAKAMI Yukino who plays Koto - her presence supports the backbone of the story that does not have any special incidents. Although the film depicts an everyday domestic world around us, it is interesting to see a glimpse of Japanese society through Koto's work.

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