10 Febrary 2016 – Bulmershe Theatre, Minghella Studios
Yuki Tanada visited CFAC to discuss her film The Cowards Who Looked to the Sky (2012), which screened as part of the 2016 Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme (5 February to 26 March 2016).
The Cowards Who Looked to the Sky (2012)
Faced with the growing pressure of bearing a child for her immature husband, lonely housewife Satomi (Tomoko Tabata) regularly retreats to the cosplay fantasy world of her favourite animated character ‘Anzu’. After a random encounter at an anime convention with high-school student and fellow cosplayer Takumi (Kento Nagayama), Satomi begins a full illicit affair with the young man, regularly meeting and making love at her marital home. Meanwhile, Takumi’s best friend Ryota struggles living with his senile grandmother in a rundown housing development after his mother abandoned the two of them for a new boyfriend.
Yuki Tanada, considered one of Japan’s most talented filmmakers, returns from a four year break with this emotionally-engaging and bold expression of the inner lives, hardships and cooped-up feelings of individuals in modern day Japan.