Known for Acting
Yukiko, a 29-year-old elementary school teacher in Tokyo, struggles with student communication and personal insecurities. Overlooked in the “Favorite Teacher Ranking” and uneasy about her boyfriend’s marriage hints, she finds solace in hip-hop. Yet, in her first rap battle, she is completely overwhelmed by her opponent. This story follows Yukiko’s journey to discover the meaning of living authentically.
A family moves into a house, but discover that it is haunted by a murdered girl.
Matagi is a group of hunters who lives in the mountains and targets wild animals including bears, but now more and more bear hunting is forbidden by the government. This is a story of two young matagi who struggle in their dying culture.
Three teenagers attempt to commit suicide and fail. When they wake up in the hospital, they learn they have acquired mysterious superpowers. These abilities are usually passed down through generations of heroes, and are something that only allies of justice can possess… But the directionless trio, who feel there is no place for them in this world, choose to use these powers for evil in order to destroy the world.
On a normal day, a stranger breaks into Sumire's apartment and assaults her. Sumire reacts incredibly calmly to the incident, but she still feels the dangers and uncertainties creeping upon her. All that seem to be peaceful and ordinary start to collapse. As everything slips toward the unexpected, Sumire starts writing again, and reinvestigating the relationships around her.
An unapologetic former sex worker starts working at a bento stand in a small seaside town, bringing comfort to the lonely souls who come her way.
A socially-distanced college reunion, an unusual rapport struck between a food delivery man and a patron, a bus-stop encounter, and a blind woman scammed into thinking her brother is sick constitute the stories of Mayu Nakamura’s COVID-era quadriptych—a work that encapsulates the newfound anxieties of loneliness, insecurity and the struggle for connection within the depths of the pandemic lockdown. Tied together by the remarkable performances of actress Nahana, who embodies the various female characters across the film’s differing narratives, Nakamura’s episodic feature delves into the lives of women in COVID-era Japan, finding profundity and human connection amid the unlikely encounters of strangers.
The year is 2022. It is an era of chaos, half a century after the government announced the coexistence of humans and kaijins. Aoi Izumi, a young human rights activist calling for the elimination of discrimination, meets a man named Kotaro Minami, the one called "Black Sun," who is a candidate for the next Creation King.
Diagnosed with dementia, Yuriko's mind quickly begins to fade. Yet, for her son Izumi, memories of the mother feel as vivid as when he lived them. One in particular, when he believed she had disappeared, haunts him terribly.
Yuji Takanashi is a university philosophy professor who can't swim. Making awkward justifications to himself about the relationship between water and people, still he decides on the spur of the moment to enroll in a swimming class. There he encounters the teacher Shizuka Usuhara, who ignores his last-minute hesitation and enrolls him.
An unexpected love triangle, a seduction trap, and a random encounter are the three episodes, told in three movements to depict three female characters and trace the trajectories between their choices and regrets.
