Japan after a nuclear disaster. Tanya is terminally ill and awaiting the results of a government-organised evacuation lottery. But since she is a migrant, her chances to win are very low. Left all alone, she spends her last days in a desolate place together with Leona, a female android in a wheelchair who becomes her only true friend.
Sayonara is perhaps the most subtle, poetic and intimate of takes on a post-apocalyptic world and relations between humans and cyborgs. Tanya builds a deeply emotional bond with the robot, who not only looks like a human but also learns to understand things that only people can know – mortality and the fear of death.
In Japanese, ‘sayonara’ means ‘the last goodbye’. This is a special moment full of deep melancholy and true beauty, and such is the film of Fukada Koji. The film features the most charming android ever, fantastically played by the real android Geminoid F, created in Osaka University. Also screens in the programme ID: The Generic Self.
Film details
- Country of production
- Japan
- Year
- 2015
- Festival edition
- IFFR 2016
- Length
- 112"
- Medium/Format
- DCP
You may also like this
-
Yi-Ren (The Person of Whom I Think)
A love letter in collage style, consisting of found footage and a strange reading of Kang-Chien Chui’s work, karaoke and diary videos.
-
11 Minutes
Exciting mosaic drama centred on a budding actress, an American filmmaker, a jealous husband and a motorbike courier. About the chaos that rules li
-
Free in Deed
In the often ethnically coloured American storefront churches, the faithful piously pray for miracles. So does a single mother, who hopes a ministe