While the concatenation of deadpan comical moments succeeds in charming audiences, Ugana’s narrative falls flat in the last half-hour.
Category: Festivals
The Young Strangers (2024) review [Camera Japan Festival 2025]
Uchiyama delivers a masterpiece that does not merely grab the spectator by his throat, but confronts him with the fundamental importance of the signifier in a heartrending way.
The Harbor lights (2025) review [Japannual 2025]
The beauty of Harbor Lights lies in its ability to invite the spectator to think through the dynamic of inter-generational trauma – the dimension of loss – and the destabilizing effect of (structural) discrimination long after the credits have faded.
The Invisible Half (2025) review [Japannual 2025]
Masaki Nishiyama’s message resounds clearly: embrace your Otherness, despite all the societal hammers seeking to hammer you, the nail that sticks out, down.
Baka’s identity (2025) review [Japannual 2025]
Koto Nagata offers the spectator a saddening but entertaining portrait of what the Japanese Other does not want anyone to see: the unsavoury marriage between crime and capitalism
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.
Ghost Killer (2025) review [Japannual 2025]
Sonomura’s narrative does little to re-invent the genre, but delivers everything one’s desires in such narratives in spades – a crowd-pleaser, indeed.
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.
The Killer Goldfish (2025) review [Camera Japan Festival]
An absurd brutal supernatural fantasy that has the potential to become a cult-favourite.
Flames of a Flower (2025) review [OAFF 2025]
A compelling exploration of the divergent ways subjects deal with trauma and the Other that fails to respond adequately.
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.
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