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Exus, Honda, Subaru, Microsoft, Shiseido, Canon, Cisco, and others, Kazunori Miura has worked across various industries before making his directorial debut with the short “Scenario.” The movie earned Best Actress at the Ashiya International Art & Film Festival and the Grand Prix at the Wakayama Kisssh-Kissssssh Film Festival. It is also screening at Nippon Connection.

Scenario is screening at Nippon Connection

“Scenario” begins with messages popping up on a smartphone, where a woman asks someone about breakfast before she starts preparing scrambled eggs. After finishing, a man appears. The two, Misato and Satoshi Kodama, begin eating, and a conversation emerges about what they should do that day. It becomes clear that both the question about breakfast and the day’s plan were posed to the titular A.I.

The story then shows the couple learning that Misato is pregnant. We see them expressing joy and gratitude toward God. Around that time,...

Receiving its world premiere in Pingyao International Film Festival’s Crouching Tigers section, Zhang Yu’s feature debut Killing The Violet is the story of a woman dealing with the aftermath of being raped after a man breaks into her apartment.

At first she appears completely calm and assures her live-in boyfriend that there is nothing to worry about. But slowly she starts to question herself and the world around her starts to disintegrate. One of the first walls to crack is her ambition to be a writer and her feelings towards her father, a famous novelist who is comatose following a stroke, but still appears to enjoy sexual relations with his younger wife.

Zhang is a Shanghai-based director and screenwriter who made Killing The Violet as her graduation film at Tokyo University of the Arts. Produced by her classmate Lu Yanqing, the film is co-written by Zhang and Marina Kikuchi.