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Prepare yourself for a dreamy, spherical ghost show. Shinji Imaoka hijacks the audience for a 60-minute afterlife experience.

Is This Heaven? is screening at Camera Japan

Nobou is a middle-aged man, who has a drinking problem. In four episodes, named after alcoholic beverages, he wanders around a scenic waterfront meeting familiar and unknown people from the past, including his wife. In this otherworldly afterlife, everyone is (drunk) laughing and dancing and all sounds are muted. The plot deepens half-way through when Nobou meets the late ex-husband of his wife. Their conversation marks the emotional summit as they reminisce about the different memories that they shared with her.

Check also this interview Interview with Shinji Imaoka: Time as a healing tool for everything is a lie

Veteran actor Hidetoshi Kawaya carries the whole film through his outgoing performance, celebrating his death. Nevertheless, the elliptical odyssey is hard to come by. Without a clear road ahead,...

In a movie industry like the Japanese, where the indie family dramas that follow the contemporary “rules” set up by Hirokazu Koreeda are in abundance, it is always a pleasure to come across titles that are completely different. “Reiko and the Dolphin” is one of those titles.

“Reiko and the Dolphin” is screening at Osaka Asian Film Festival

The story begins the day of the devastating earthquake in Kobe in 1995, where the story introduces us to a married couple, Ichiko and Tasuke, and their little daughter, Reiko, who loves dolphins. The three of them experience the earthquake quite differently, since Ichiko was having sex with another man in a hotel, while Tasuke was outside of their house, smoking. The tragedy however, hits their daughter, who is killed in her sleep, with the events leading the couple to divorce, and leaving them deeply traumatized. The rest of the story unfolds in time leaps forward,...