Genki Kawamura delivers an engaging and visually arresting psychological horror narrative that takes the concept of liminality to its anthropological origin.
Category: Psychological
Undead lovers (2024) review
Matsui delivers a heartwarming romance narrative that, due to its fresh approach to certain tropes of the genre, rises above the common derivative romance drivel Japan usually produces.
Teki Cometh (2024) review [Camera Japan Festival]
A vivid and mesmerising experience that does not only illustrates the subjective impact of increased isolation on giving meaning to one’s own life – on the stability of the frame of one’s ego.
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.
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.
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.
Short Movie Review: Chime (2024) review
With his horror-short. Kiyoshi Kurosawa proves that he still is a master of horror.
After The Fever (2024) review
It is an exhausting experience, yet an experience that, if one succeeds to make it to the end, convincingly shows that the idea of romantic harmony is but an unrealizable fantasy.
Revolution +1 (2022) Review
Masao Adachi delivers an important political statement that, by offering an evocative sketch of Tetsuya Yamagami’s tragic trajectory, invites the Japanese spectator to question his own passivity towards the political Other.
I Am Kirishima (2025) review [OAFF 2025]
A timely narrative that highlights the inert quality of a societal field structured by capitalism and right-wing nationalism.
Good Luck (2025) review [OAFF 2025]
Shin Adachi utilizes the dynamic of the encounter to examine the problem of desiring within the societal field and the way desire give rise to misunderstanding between subjects.
Small, Slow But Steady (2022) review
An incredibly powerful boxing-narrative elevated by Yukino Kishii’s emotionally powerful perfomance.
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