Welcome to the third of four trailer posts
You can find part one here, part two here, and the last part will come tomorrow!
I’ve started back in on Castlevania games with the GBA collection and the gameplay is so smooth and familiar, the art so deliciously macabre yet comedic and cute, that the whole experience is a welcome tonic to my commuting and also that cheeky 30 minutes of gaming I do at the end of the day.
What is the next batch of films to be released?
The next three films are by documentary filmmaker Makoto Sato, who passed away suddenly in 2007 at the age of 49. They have been given a 4K update for their newest cinema outing, a programme called “The Idea of Living: Makoto Sato RETROSPECTIVE” starting May 24, 2024.
Hanako 
花子 「Hanako」
Release Date: January 26th, 2002
Duration: 60 mins.
Director: Makoto Sato
Writer: N/A
Starring: Hanako Imamura, Yasunobu Imamura,
Website Twitter: @satomakoto4K IMDB
Synopsis: Hanako Imamura is the subject of this documentary. A young woman with severe autism, she lives with her parents and older sister in the town of Oyamazaki, Kyoto Prefecture. She enjoys going to art workshops and painting in oils and going on weekend outings with her father, Yasunobu. She came to fame for creating “food art” that she created after workshop sessions. Her material was the leftover food from dinner which she would arrange into images and her mother, Chisato, would photograph these images. They eventually became famous and exhibited around Japan. In tracking Hanako’s routine, Sato shows the mechanics of this most ordinary family.
Mahiro no Hoshi 
まひるのほし 「Mahiro no Hoshi」
Release Date: January 16th, 1999
Duration: 93 mins.
Director: Makoto Sato
Writer: N/A
Starring: Yoshihiko Ito, Noriko Kawamura, Takao Matsumoto, Tetsuo Nishio, Yukie Takemura,
Website Twitter: @satomakoto4K IMDB
Synopsis: Makoto Sato’s documentary shows the creative activities of seven artists with intellectual disabilities and rich personalities from across Japan. We see how they approach their art and express themselves as well as their daily lives and those of the people around them.
Out of Place: Memories of Edward Said 
エドワード・サイード OUT OF PLACE 「Eodowa-do Sai-do OUT OF PLACE」
Release Date: May 24th, 2006
Duration: 137 mins.
Director: Makoto Sato
Writer: N/A
Starring: Marian Said, Noam Chomsky, Daniel Barenboim, Elias Khoury,
Website Twitter: @satomakoto4K IMDB
Synopsis: This documentary gives an insight into the life and legacy of famed Palestinian-American intellectual Edward Said. Through interviews with Arabs and Israelis, audiences will get an insight into an important figure in post-colonial studied and also the Palestinian issue.
Wakamusha 
若武者「Wakamusha」
Release Date: May 25th, 2024
Duration: 137 mins.
Director: Ryutaro Ninomiya
Writer: Ryutaro Ninomiya, (Screenplay),
Starring: Ryota Bando, Naoya Shimizum, Rion Takahashi, Aki Kigoshi, Yuzuha Saeki,
Ryutaro Ninomiya is an actor and film director who has been known as a chronicler of young people in Japan, starting from his debut The Charm of Others (2012) all the way through to Sweating the Small Stuff (2017), and Minori on the Brink (2019). Last year, he was at Cannes with Dreaming in Between (2023), which focussed on the life of a middle-aged man facing dementia. He returns to the realms of youth drama with Wakamusha, the word of which translated into “young warrior” which is a minimalist drama about the existential angst experienced by three friends in their 20s who have yet to find a path in life. Judging from the Japan Times review it looks like a solid work that tests an audience with its moments of unpleasantness that are experienced in a spartan and repetitious way.
This film will open at various sites around the world, not just Japan. Locations include the Dryden Cinema in New York, the Phoenix Cinema, The Garden Cinema, and Whirled Cinema in London, and Northwest Film Forum in Seattle. Head to the site to find out more.
Synopsis: Wataru, a factory worker, Eiji, a restaurant server, and Mitsunori, a caregiver, are friends and part-timers drifting through life. Even though they are all in their late 20s, they have yet to find a path in life and hang out doing not much of anything while acting out on discontent in their lives. Wataru, in particular, has a deep well of discontent, something sharpened into a hatred for his stepfather while Eiji takes some delight in the negativity which soon turns into violence as they strike out at what they think are social infractions performed by others. Despite their behaviour, they still yearn to find a place in the world and worry about the future while memories of a friend lost earlier in life haunts them.
Meteru to Dobutsuenmae no Sekai 
め〜てると動物の世界 「Me-teru to Dobutsuenmae no Sekai」
Release Date: May 25th, 2024
Duration: 60 mins.
Director: Andrew Shin
Writer: Andrew Shin, (Screenplay),
Starring: Misa Yasu, Ayako Yukawa, Mame Yamada, Hikohiko Sugiyama,
Synopsis: After a stay at a hospital a young girl returns home but finds unusual events occur to her all while she reckons with an invisible wall between her and her father and a fear of mirrors. After she decides to run away from home, she meets a mysterious woman…
Haru no Kessho 
春の結晶 「Haru no Kessho」
Release Date: May 25th, 2024
Duration: 22 mins.
Director: Tokuhiro Yasukawa
Writer: Tokuhiro Yasukawa (Screenplay),
Starring: Miko Nakazawa, Narumi Sakurai, Raiju Kamata, Sakura, Miyu Matsuzaki
Website Twitter: @Office_Kiryu
Synopsis: Miko Nakazawa is in her debut lead role and she plays a high school girl attending a graduation ceremony with her friends. With an instant camera between them, the group take pictures of various moments but the number of pictures they can take is finite and it is while taking and looking at the pictures that she recognises she has a crush for a classmate.