Synopsis

Misako writes and records film audio descriptions for vision-impaired audiences, passionately translating cinematic experiences through verbal description. While soliciting feedback from a focus group panel, she meets Masaya, a renowned photographer who is slowly losing his eyesight. The two form an unlikely connection as she draws inspiration from his photographs and his way of seeing the world.

Synopsis

The six shorts in this program represent distinct modes of storytelling through film, while reflecting the diversity and creativity of our region. Featuring works by Dustin Nakao-Haider, McKenzie Chinn, Linh Tran, Tetsuya Mariko, Ian Kelly, and Brian Zahm.

In Ethan Lim: Cambodian Futures (U.S.), we follow a chef with a mission to share and elevate Cambodian food using his family’s recipes. Two friends living on the south side of Chicago find their friendship tested when one reveals a tightly-held secret in A Real One (U.S.). In Video Funeral (U.S.), two Vietnamese sisters bond over their father’s death and funeral. Two small-time thieves encounter an abandoned car with a small child in the backseat in Before Anyone Else (Japan, U.S.). A grandson uses animation to reconstruct a loved one’s lost memories in the documentary Soft Lights and Silver Shadows (U.S.). Photosynthesis (U.S.) takes the viewer on a 3D journey in the form of a 1960s perceptual art-inspired experience.

Synopsis

A young boy named Mahito yearning for his mother ventures into a world shared by the living and the dead. There, death comes to an end, and life finds a new beginning.

A semi-autobiographical fantasy about life, death, and creation,
 in tribute to friendship, from the mind of Hayao Miyazaki.

Synopsis

In the opening scenes of Hirokazu Kore-eda’s latest masterwork, a three-alarm fire engulfing a building evokes the many small sparks that have ignited a culture of gossip, stigma, fear, and silence in a coastal community. When her young son Minato starts to behave strangely, his mother Saori feels that there is something wrong. Discovering that Minato’s teacher, Mr. Hori is responsible for the boy’s odd behavior, she storms into the school demanding to know what’s going on. But answers — much less accountability — remain elusive as Mr. Hori denies all accusations. Minato and his fellow classmate Yori remain tight-lipped and evasive. As the story unfolds through the eyes of mother, teacher, and then child, the truth gradually emerges.

Directing for the first time from a script not entirely his own (co-written by industry veteran Sakamoto Yuji), Chicago International Film Festival favorite Kore-eda expertly pieces together an exquisite narrative mosaic, journeying down three separate paths and perspectives that converge in an inexorable climax. Celebrated composer Ryuichi Sakamoto provides the ethereal soundtrack.

Synopsis

Living a life of solitary, quiet contentment, a middle-aged public toilet cleaner (Kôji Yakusho) spends his days working, reading, listening to cassette tapes, and tending to his indoor garden. The satisfying rhythms of his life are interrupted when his niece, fleeing her family, arrives for an unexpected visit. The two begin to bond, relishing their ability to share in the beauty of the everyday.

Featuring a stellar soundtrack and a warm, grounded performance from Yakusho, Perfect Days is at once a love letter to the city of Tokyo, an open-hearted character study, and an irresistible, charm-filled exaltation of the profound pleasures of a simple life.