Hanagatami

Preceded By How Can You Know Where to Go If You Do Not Know Where You Have Been

Intro with Director Mizuki Toriya In this tender and inspired short, the director sets delicate sand imagery to a conversation with her grandmother who experienced WWII in Kobe. 2018, 6 min. Directed by Mizuki Toriya.

Feature Slate | CLOSING FILM

U.S. Premiere

SOLD OUT: A waitlist will begin at the Box Office one hour prior to the screening. Being on the waitlist does not guarantee admission.

Intro and Q&A with star Shunsuke Kubozuka

A passion project that was in gestation even before his legendary debut House (1977), veteran director Nobuhiko Obayashi’s follow-up to Seven Weeks (JAPAN CUTS 2015) is an adaptation of Kazuo Dan’s 1937 novella about a group of teenagers living in the coastal town of Karatsu as the Pacific War creeps ever closer. An ensemble cast of Japanese cinema’s rising stars plays out Obayashi’s fever dream of youth, desire and romance within an extravagantly stylized cinematic hyperreality full of his signature green screen composites, elaborate lighting and dizzying editing. With the horror of war in view, the doomed characters burn with desire to live their lives to the fullest, suggesting both a warning and a call for compassion and peace from the 80-year-old director.

2017. 169 min. DCP, in Japanese with English subtitles. Directed by Nobuhiko Obayashi. With Shunsuke Kubozuka, Takako Tokiwa, Mugi Kadowaki, Shinnosuke Mitsushima.

72nd Mainichi Film Award for Best Film

"“Nobuhiko Obayashi’s time-skipping historical drama is a dense weave of the personal and the political.”

— Variety

Healthy Japanese light meals, snacks and festival-related refreshments available for purchase by  .