Sakurako Iwama

A geisha in the Gion district of Kyoto feels obliged to help her lover when he asks to stay with her after going bankrupt and leaving his wife. However, her younger sister opposes this, thinking that they should both find wealthy patrons to support them.

Against the landscape of Japan’s historic Shikoku pilgrimage, Shinji is a grief-stricken alcoholic whose only companionship comes through conversations with the ghost of his late wife Haruka. As his daughter Kyoko struggles to keep their fractured home together, Shinji drifts further into delusion, finding his sole tether to reality at a bar run by Mari. After his self-destructive behavior drives Haruka’s ghost away, father and daughter set out in search of her, confronting grief, memory, and the possibility of spiritual reconciliation.