Masaki Nishiyama’s message resounds clearly: embrace your Otherness, despite all the societal hammers seeking to hammer you, the nail that sticks out, down.
Category: Family
Strangers in Kyoto (2025) review [Japannual 2025]
A light-hearted exploration of uncomfortable truths that marks our interactions with others/the Other – what we say is not what we mean; what we want to say we are not allowed to say; politeness is often a fabricated facade that we must believe in.
A Bad Summer (2025) review [Japannual 2025]
Hideo Jojo offers a compelling exploration of poverty within the Japanese societal field as well as the the structural possibility of exploiting the welfare system for one’s own gain.
New Group (2025) review [Japannual 2025]
Yuta Shimotsu delivers a narrative that, in all probability. will be called the first true J-horror classic of the current decade.
How Dare You? (2025) review [Camera Japan Festival]
With her narrative, Mipo O delivers one of the most convincing arguments to parents to create space for the subjectivity of their child and to take their signifiers – their pleasures, pressures, worries, fights, and frustrations – seriously.
The Man Who Failed To Die (2025) review [Camera Japan Festival]
Seiji Tanaka refuses to colour within the lines of comedy, creating an eclectic collage of different genre-elements that does not fail to satisfy the spectator.
Dear Stranger (2025) review
Tetsuya Mariko’s drama of the passion for ignorance could very well be the best Japanese film of the year.
Truth or Lies (2025) review [OAFF 2025]
An incredibly satisfying film that does not merely show that subjects need the lie but also that it is, by virtue of fiction, that our signifiers have effects on the other.
Dawn Chorus (2025) review [OAFF 2025]
A beautiful meditative narrative about the struggles of becoming subject that will resonate with many.
Revolver Lily (2023) review
A very enjoyable action-thriller that succeeds in satisfying the spectator thirsting for exciting action-pieces.
There Was A Father (1942) review
A quintessential Ozu narrative that, despite its age, still succeeds in engaging the spectator.
River Returns (2025) review [Nippon Connection 2025]
Masakazu Kaneko convinces the spectator to go beyond the consumptive way of interacting with the other and have more eye and ear for the subjectivity of the Other.
Missing Child Videotape (2024) review [Nippon Connection 2025]
Ryota Kondo proves that the emaciated and abused body of J-horror still has some life within it.
Godzilla’s Revenge – All Monsters Attack (1969) review [The Godzilla Project]
Sekizawa’s narrative confronts the spectator light-heartedly with the endpoint of Godzilla’s social decontextualizing.
Abashiri Prison – Saga of Homesickness (1965)
An engaging narrative that illustrates how the image of the father can be a prison for the subject.
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