In what may be his last film after a career spanning almost sixty years, Obayashi Nobuhiko, the famed cult director of Hausu (1977), hasn’t shed any of his youthful style of charming exuberance in this period drama set on the eve of World War II. Quick zooms, rapid-fire cuts and a flicker of sumptuous colours create a rollercoaster ride through a frenzied historical moment that Japan usually prefers to forget.
Teenage boy Sakakiyama Toshiko returns from Amsterdam, of all places, to the coastal town of Karatsu, in the Saga prefecture. Staying at his aunt’s, he becomes part of a social circle of neighbourhood boys and girls who all get caught up in the chaos of the times.
When asked about his stylised tone, Obayashi commented that any amount of CGI would never compare to the lived experience of war.
Programme
Familiar faces from the world of film: new work from established filmmakers, auteurs and festival veterans.
Read more about this programmeIn 2011, contentious French punk filmmaker F.J. Ossang was a special guest at IFFR. Seven years later, he returns with a new, elegant, black-and-white mystery about a criminal plot led by the shady 9 Fingers, a character very reminiscent of Fritz Lang’s Dr Mabuse.
98'
France
IFFR 2018
A philosophy lecturer houses his 23-year-old daughter with a broken heart and his mistress of the same age. He tries to be a father to one and lover to the other. French filmmaker Philippe Garrel’s Lover for a Day concludes a trilogy of anecdotal, black-and-white films on the vagaries of love.
76'
France
IFFR 2018
Medea, Jason, Bacchus and Saturn – are they donkeys and/or mythological creatures here? Like the Italians in Alba during the donkey races, Anatoly Vasiliev worships donkeys. His film also summarises the donkey’s role in Western culture: from stupid and stubborn to a loyal beast of burden.
167'
Switzerland
IFFR 2018