Directing
Tourists, foreigners and outcasts converge on the streets of Osaka in this sprawling ensemble drama by Japan-based, Malaysia-born filmmaker Lim Kah Wai. His eighth feature explores the lesser-known aspects of the Asian melting pot city through the eyes and experiences of a dozen characters who struggle to find their place in society: among them a Nepali refugee with dreams of opening a restaurant, a Burmese student struggling to make ends meet while working two jobs, and a Taiwanese sex tourist who travels to meet his favorite adult video actress.
Kiko, who is pessimistic about herself being a lesbian, spends her days worried because she cannot convey her feelings to her best friend. A story about the conflicts and decisions of lesbian women.
A poet who lost his words and a woman who miscarried her baby meet on the equator, and two emotions start to mingle at the point of latitude 0°.
An elementary school boy, Shogo, catches insects and collects them at home every day during his school's winter break. Shogo knows there is a much larger insect collection in his father's room, which is always locked. But when his father Toru comes back from his job overseas, where he is touched by the reincarnation philosophy of India and Bhutan, he tells Shogo that he doesn't want to collect insects anymore. Shogo's grandfather, Tadashi, treats his dead wife's ashes as a living figure, but the noodles Tadashi gives her remains in a bowl. “Has grandma reincarnated into something else?” Seeing adults' different views of life and death, Shogo wonders what death is all about.
What is the difference between children and adults? Nine-year-old Motoho gave herself this assignment for summer break homework and in order to answer her question she goes around the neighborhood interviewing people. At the same time, a film crew is also filming in the same town, based on the feelings invoked by the words “far away…”
