Where Are You?

Kobayashi Masahiro, in 2008 Film Maker in Focus at this festival, has chosen a teenager as protagonist for the first time. His son, Kobayashi Yuto, plays the 16-year-old Ryo while he himself (as earlier in The Rebirth) plays the father. Ryo finds himself in a desperate situation: his mother is dying and there is no money for the hospital bills. The electricity and water have been shut off and he is hungry. He reluctantly starts stealing from his boss, but soon is caught. When his mother dies shortly afterward, he goes looking for his father in Tokyo; the countryside has nothing to offer the lonely boy. Whether much good awaits him in town is the question. Where Are You? is dedicated to Kobayashi’s dead father and to Antoine Doinel, the character who features in several films by François Truffaut.