Acting
Yukino Murakami is a Japanese actress.
Arakawa Ao lives happily on his own and hardly ever leaves Shimokitazawa, where he works at a vintage clothing shop, goes to occasional concerts and hangs out at his favorite bar. Then, he gets an unusual request to appear in an independent film.
Shuji Tokita (Eiji Okuda) is a film director and a professor at a university. He goes through a difficult time trying to film his new movie. He believes his movies reflect his own personal expriences. A female high school student, Ritsuko (Yukino Murakami), appears in front of Shuji.
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We see a woman lying down. She awakens from a dream of a festival she visited in her youth to a scene that feels familiar. Reminiscing on her first love, her marriage, giving birth, and meeting the love of her life, she wanders for a while. Was the place she met him again a dream, or was it Heaven? Was the one she met her first love, or the love of her life? This is a story about love, and about one woman.
Mori, a musician struggling with the distance between himself and his wife Maiko, a photographer, has an unexpected reunion with his former friend Asako. This encounter rekindles a love that had long since passed between them. However, their memories diverge, and recollections colored by expectations and desires emerge blurred, distorted, and conveniently rewritten within each of them. And at the end of a long walk, Mori and Asako come to reexamine their two lives that have already strayed from their paths, and the present moment where each of them now stands.
A film about making films, we follow the exploits of Kiriko, an indie film director who is struggling to make a road movie that ends on a beach. Why do so many independent films have to have a beach scene? That is a question that gets asked along the way but her journey to the location is beset with difficulties, from budget to casting. There is only so much she can do and so she inches forward making compromises and finding ways around problems to realise her dream, all while living in the real world and fulfilling obligations to others as best she can.
After some misunderstanding, Sakaguchi is hired to make a tourist guide video on Tobako (a fictitious name for Kawaguchi) in the outskirts of Tokyo. This element in the script sparks off a fanciful wandering strewn with unexpected meetings. First with Kitagawa, thanks to whom Sakaguchi landed the job. Then with a seamstress, and then with Yoshino, with whom a half-hearted romance emerges. Thus the narrative unfolds, in halts and swerves, espousing unexpected meetings, and offering the strolling character an opportunity for displacements from one place to the next. The deserted town has come to a standstill - the shooting took place during the lockdown - and this acts as a metaphor for the idleness of the characters. GARDEN SANDBOX is light and nimble, whereas its main character hasa limp. Her demeanour and her stiff body exude a peculiar quality, somewhat comically at odds with the setting.
In Komatsushima, a port town in Tokushima, Shikoku, Haruka Asakura lives with her effeminate father Goro Asakura, her uncle Kentaro Asakura who is in love with a prostitute, and her cousin Manabu Kurokawa who is an aspiring singer-songwriter. Never a dull moment at the dining table, each have their own problems, yet live happy lives. All of a sudden, a tragedy falls upon Haruka, sending the family into turmoil.
TV producer Kei and her recently retired comedian boyfriend Yoshi are working to conceive their first child as they consider marriage approaching mid-thirties—a process complicated by the fact that Kei has continued taking contraceptives. Annoyed by Yoshi relaxing into domestic life and slacking off at his part-time job, Kei has finally worked around her male colleagues’ obstruction to spearhead an innovative web series guest hosted by rotating everyday people. She invites Shiori, a young trans man working for her office’s delivery service and moonlighting as a bartender at an LGBTQ-inclusive space, to kick off the program. However, as Kei pushes forward, she reaches a breaking point.
Joe works as a professional stand-in, posing as friends and family for clients. An occurrence at a funeral gig blurs the line between Joe's work and personal life.
Short film by Yui Kiyohara.
Ema suffers from memory loss. One day she gets a drawing of an elephant from Yang , a childhood friend who has gone missing. With the postmark as her only clue, Ema heads on a journey to find Yang with her childhood friend Ban and his girlfriend Yuri .
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.
