Synopsis

On the snowy island of Hokkaido, young Takuya isn’t thrilled about being forced to play ice hockey at school. On the ice, he becomes fascinated with Sakura, a talented figure skater training for an upcoming competition. Her coach sees potential — and perhaps a bit of his younger self — in Takuya, and proposes that he train the two together as an ice dancing duo. As Takuya improves, the two children form a tentative yet harmonious bond, and their skating brings inspiration to all three of them. But as the days get longer, the reality of life outside the rink begins to slip in and melt the harmony between the skating pair and their trainer.

Bathed in soft pastel light and a gentle disposition, My Sunshine explores the questions of burgeoning youth with exquisite subtlety and dreamlike wonder.

Synopsis

Synopsis

1917. Edward, a skittish civil servant working for the British Empire, has been posted in Rangoon, Burma for years. When his fiancée Molly sends a letter announcing her imminent arrival, he experiences a sudden and debilitating case of cold feet, boards the first ship in sight, and flees the country. Learning of his escape, Molly is determined to track him down. So she embarks on an Asian grand tour, going from Bangkok to Shanghai in search of her reluctant lover. Equal parts 1930s Hollywood throwback and meditative travelog, director Miguel Gomes (The Tsugua Diaries, Chicago IFF 2020) imbues this globe-trotting love story with searching melancholy. The studio-set “colonial romance” is shot in black and white, and intercut with sumptuous color footage shot in the modern day. The result is an intoxicating mixture of fiction and documentary that ponders the past as it ruminates on our present.

Synopsis

A couple learns that, due to a hospital mix-up years ago, they must welcome their unknown biological son — and bid farewell to the boy they’ve long loved.

Synopsis

Kiyoshi Kurosawa has a gift for finding the uncanny in any situation. His latest film, Cloud, sees the Japanese genre master returning to the techno-paranoia of his 2001 classic Pulse, but with a twist: Here, Kurosawa is exploring the horror of buying something online, only to find out that it’s a useless piece of plastic junk. Ryosuke Yoshii (Masaki Suda) makes his living peddling these knockoffs under the username “Ratel,” and is doing quite well for himself — that is, until an online community of embittered, unhappy customers uncover “Ratel’s” true identity and track him down IRL.

Cloud is an intriguingly bizarre entry into Kuroswa’s filmography, combining cosmic horror with an EC Comics-style morality tale and just a hint of Reservoir Dogs. An anti-capitalist action movie with a dark sense of humor and loads of bloody gunplay, it’s a warning to anyone who’s ever hidden behind the anonymity of the internet.