| Details | Available in the United States for up to 600 views beginning March 12
Stream it Here: https://nmaancbf2021.eventive.org/welcome
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gc-vV_H0sCw
Hailed by The Hollywood Reporter as a “hidden gem” of the 2020 Berlin International Film Festival, Nobuhiro Suwa’s moving drama was inspired by the “wind phone”: a phone booth with a disconnected rotary phone located on a hillside in Otsuchi, one of the towns that was devastated by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Visitors can “call” their deceased loved ones, and since 2011, tens of thousands have made the pilgrimage. Set in 2018, Suwa’s film tells the story of seventeen-year-old Haru (model Serena Motola), who lost her family in the disaster and now lives with her aunt in Hiroshima. When Haru’s aunt is hospitalized, she decides to hitchhike the hundreds of miles back to her hometown of Otsuchi to try to bring closure to her grief. In mainly improvised scenes, Haru meets various characters, all of whom are still affected by the disaster. "Going there eight years later,” Suwa has said, “you can’t see much of the damage, it has been rebuilt. But people’s feelings have not been fixed. Because you can’t see that on the surface, it is even more important that it is portrayed." (Dir.: Nobuhiro Suwa, Japan, 2020, 139 min., Japanese with English subtitles) Images courtesy of Open Sesame Co. Ltd. |
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